Industry Confectionery Website ernesthillier.com.au Founded 1914 | Products Chocolates Headquarters Coburg North Type Privately held company | |
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Area served Australia, international exports Profiles | ||
Ernest Hillier Chocolates is an Australian chocolatier. Founded in 1914, it is Australia's first chocolate manufacturer, and the oldest privately owned chocolatier still in operation.
The company's product range includes over six hundred chocolate products. The company is headquartered in Melbourne, Victoria.
History
Ernest Hillier moved from England to San Francisco, California, United States, in the early 1900s to learn the confectionery and soda trade. There, he and his Australian-born wife, Magdalen May, opened several restaurants; however, the majority of their establishments were destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
The Hilliers subsequently moved to Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, in 1906, where Ernest began a sequence of Australian firsts. In 1911, he opened the first soda fountain in Australia, "Hillier Refreshment Services", at the Imperial Skating Rink.
Because of the success of the soda fountain, Hillier was put in charge of catering at the amusement park at Rushcutters Bay, New South Wales. That same year he also looked after Gauts refreshment service and a fountain shop in George Street, opposite the Central Railway Station.
In 1914, Hillier opened his chocolatier business, providing locally made chocolate. Prior to this, all chocolate in Australia had to be imported from the U.S. and Europe. Because of the distance and climatic conditions, together with transport restrictions, the chocolate always arrived in poor condition.
In the wake of the Great Depression, chocolate sales dramatically declined in Sydney; in response, Hillier moved his business to Melbourne, Victoria.
Hillier eventually sold the business later in life.
In October 2000, Hillier purchased Australian confectionery company Newman's.
Suffering financial distress, Hillier was sold to Re:Capital in 2014, who were subsequently unable to turn the business around and placed it in to voluntary administration in January, 2015.