BLONDE economist Jessica Irvine tells us “… many other loved Australian brands such as Holden and Vegemite were American-owned from the start -- by General Motors and Kraft.”
That would have been news to poor old Fred Walker, of the Fred Walker Cheese Company, who went to his grave in 1935 believing his chief chemist, Cyril Callister, invented the world’s greatest toast enhancer 13 years earlier. Kraft entered a partnership with Fred in 1925 and bought out the company upon the founder’s death.
Jessica is a bit closer, but still wrong, about Holden, which was building bodies for imported GM chasis under contract , as well as doing the odd bit of work for GM rivals. It was in 1931, 75 years after Holden began, that GM took control.
