One baker’s tale

When the Company’s first baker, Edward Halsey, began preparing the very first Sanitarium products in 1898, he was driven to improving health in Australia. He rented a small bakery in Melbourne, and produced Australia’s first batch of ready-to-eat breakfast cereal – Granola (made of wheats, oats, maize and rye) and Granose (the unsweetened forerunner to Weet-Bix). He and his team sold it from door to door as an alternative to fat-laden or poor nutritious foods popular at the time.

It wasn’t long before the fledgling business relocated to larger premises – moving to Cooranbong, New South Wales, just south of Newcastle. Ed installed bake house equipment in a large building, that had previously been a sawmill. In 1900, he transferred to New Zealand - where he began making the first batches of Granola, caramel cereals and bread, in a small wooden shed in Papanui, Christchurch.