A fight for the future of Britain’s original and most iconic travel snack is underway.
“Sir Edmund Hilary and Sirdar Tenzing ate this Mint Cake on top of Everest as they gazed at the countryside far below them. Since then Kendal Mint Cake has become a firm favourite with hikers, climbers and visitors to the Lake District,” John Barron, the current managing director of Romney’s Mint Cake says in a Cumbrian accent as thick as the sugar syrup mix which is cooling on trays nearby, reading from the back of the firm’s most beloved product.
The proud confectionary merchant has followed in his father’s, grandfather’s, and great-grandfather’s footsteps to lead the helm of the Lake District’s favourite sweet treat. When I visited, John’s own 20-year-old son Rex was squirreling away in the office adjoining the factory, primed with a business studies and accountancy degree to take over the company, one day.
So far, Romney’s has been stamping out slabs of the minty, sugary treat for 107 years from its base in the beautiful Lake District town which lends it its name.
When the Mirror visited the plant, confectionaries were stirring vast pots of gloopy sugar, making sure the mix didn’t get too thick before it could be poured into moulds. A cloud of mint smell hung heavily in the air, blasting through my lungs like an industrial-scale Vix Vapour Rub.
“You don’t even notice the smell after a while,” John said cheerfully as 120C concoction was transferred from bowl to mould.
Legend goes that the mintcake first came into this world in 1869 thanks to Joseph Wiper, who overboiled a glossy mint recipe by accident, only for the mixture to turn cloudy and crumbly. He quickly realised people had a taste for the candied-slab and so began churning it out from his factory where the Kendal Library now stands.
When Romney’s joined the party in 1918, they were one of several firms in the Lake District town doing so.
The Kendal mintcake is, arguably, the world’s first travel snack and energy bar. Due to its composition of basically just sugar, it’s jam-packed full of calories. Ideal for powering yomps up the hills and down into the valleys. Today, 70% of Romney’s cakes are sold in the Lakes. John himself heads off into the hills on his bicycle with a mintcake on his person, to fuel him through the burst of rain and up the steep climbs.
Edmund Hilary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay were similarly partial to a bit of mintcake, also slipping it into his pocket during their climb to the top of Everest. News that they made it to the summit broke on the day of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, the duo enjoying their final chunk of mintcake at 8,849m, looking out at the “countryside” below.
In a small office above the factory, John’s wife Paula unfurls a now wrinkly order for 38 lbs of Romney’s to be sent to the Himalayas at the tail end of years of rationing with the Government’s approval. The small bit of history is framed, having just been saved from destruction when Storm Desmon flooded the premises in 2015.
“I wonder whether your firm would like to help us by supplying some provisions either free or at a reduced price, if possible, perhaps on an advertising basis?” writes ‘Expedition Member (provision)’ in the polite letter. “Experience has shown this to be an excellent high-altitude food.”
So it proved to be. Hilary’s glory spelled success for Romney’s, which quickly became associated with a postwar episode of triumph and became the mintcake of choice. There is a timeless feel to the brand, giving the customer the sense they’re sliding open the silver and blue tin in the same way as generations of hikers, climbers, canoers and scouts before them. In a world where Smarties tubes are now hexagonal and Freddos have smashed through the £1 ceiling, it is reassuring to know that some products are sacred.
Yet it seems that change comes for all things. A new player has entered the mintcake game and they are running fulltilt towards modernity.
“Ten years ago Kendal mintcake was slowly dying a death as a touristy sweet treat,” explains Jack Barker, founder of Kendal Mint Co.
“Our idea was to try and bring what we think of as the original energy bar into the 21st century.”
Jack tells me how his Carlisle-based family firm Calder Foods teamed up with Quiggins – which itself claims to be the oldest manufacturer of the bar – to bring the mintcake into the modern day, “putting it back on the map” so it’s “not just left in the sweetshop as something your grandmother might bring back from a holiday”.
When I spoke to Jack in November, Kendal Mint Co had 19 products in development, including a “UK-produced creatine powder”. Want to get hench? Soon you’ll be able to do so while enjoying steeping yourself in delicious Cumbrian mint heritage.
After a rocky launch during the pandemic that saw hundreds of thousands of pounds of stock go to waste in a warehouse, the firm now sells 36,000 units a month. Shortly after our conversation a box of Kendal Mint Co products arrived at my door. It included raspberry mint energy gel pouches which I squeezed into my mouth during a morning jog. A very interesting combination.
While they may have different approaches to Kendal mintcake – one embracing innovation, the other preserving the values of a heritage family business – a cloud hangs over both.
Back in Romney’s HQ, Paula had proudly told me that they’d survived the rocketing cost of sugar, their exports being crushed by Brexit, floods, balooning energy bills and much else.
The third player, Wilson’s, couldn’t handle those joint challenges. It collapsed into administration in 2016, destroying 120 jobs and a modern, purpose-built factory in Holme.
The location of that factory raises a major question for both Romney’s and Kendal Mint Co. Holme may be close to Kendal, but it’s not in it. Neither does it have to be.
Kendal mintcake has not been awarded Protected Designation of Origin status, which means only products produced, processed and prepared in a certain area can use the associated name. To secure it post-Brexit, the major players must make a joint application.
Judging by the frosty atmosphere I sense between the companies, and Jack’s claim legal letters from Romney’s have demanded (among other things) that his products don’t mention ‘Everest’, this might not happen anytime soon.
Until it does, the home and future of the UK’s oldest and most iconic travel snack is a little insecure.