Falling into a vat of FruJu slushie mix in 1965 has proved a rather fortuitous accident for Havelock North's Gerry Townsend.
The former food technologist won a family tour of the Auckland Tip Top factory and a year's supply of ice cream in a Tip Top competition earlier this year.
Mr Townsend
and his family have been tucking into ice cream every week since winning the competition in February and these school holidays he and wife Jane got to take grandchildren Gracie, 5, and Ella, 3, on a trip to the ice cream factory.
"It was wonderful," Mr Townsend said. "The kids were so excited. They got to see how hokey pokey was made and the two-litre tubs of raspberry swirl ice cream."
The tour brought back memories from when Mr Townsend worked there as a food technology student in 1965 and the now infamous moment when he fell into waist deep semi-frozen FruJu slushie mix.
It was that moment that won him the Hawke's Bay competition in February that asked the public to describe their favourite Tip Top memory.
Mr Townsend said the factory's exterior still looked the same but the automated, stainless steel machinery was all new to him. The vats of FruJu mix were now fully enclosed and not part of the tour but Ella was quick to point out that the glassed walls would keep her grandfather from making any further unexpected dips.
