Abel Hoadley

Abel Hoadley (10 September 1844 – 12 May 1918) was the inventor of the popular Australian confectionery bar, the Violet Crumble.

He was born in Willingdon, East Sussex, England, the son of Peter Hoadley (blacksmith) and Elizabeth Ann Wheeler. Hoadley arrived in Australia in 1865. His first business was manufacturing and selling jams and pickles, with produce fresh from his own orchard in Burwood East. He opened a jam factory in South Melbourne, Victoria, in 1889, trading as A. Hoadley & Company.

However, he soon began a more lucrative business of manufacturing confectionery (in the Rising Sun Preserving Works in 1895), which was not dependent on seasonal ingredients. When he produced his first chocolate assortment, he packed them with a piece of honeycomb that became so popular that Mr Hoadley decided to produce an individual honeycomb bar. This was not an easy task. As the pieces of honeycomb cooled, they absorbed moisture and started sticking together. This hygroscopic nature of honeycomb led him eventually to dip his bars in chocolate, to keep the honeycomb dry and crunchy. Thus, in 1913, the Violet Crumble bar was created.

Violet Crumble

Violet Crumble is an Australian chocolate bar manufactured in Campbellfield near Melbourne, Australia, by Nestlé. Violet Crumble is also common in Hawaii and is available in other places, such as Hong Kong and Mollie Stone's Markets in California.

The bar is a crumbly honeycomb toffee center coated in compound chocolate. It is similar to the Crunchie made by Cadbury.

The slogan for the chocolate bar is "It's the way it shatters that matters" (replacing the previous slogan, "Nothing else matters").

History

Abel Hoadley (born 10 September 1844, died 12 May 1918) opened a jam factory in South Melbourne, Victoria, in 1889, trading as A. Hoadley & Company. By 1895, business had expanded rapidly and Hoadley built a five-storey premises, the Rising Sun Preserving Works. He produced jams, jellies, preserved fruits, candied peels, sauces, and confectionery and employed a workforce as large as 200. By 1901, there were four preserving factories and a large confectionery works. Hoadley had acquired the firm of Dillon, Burrows & Co. and extended his products to vinegar, cocoa, and chocolate. In 1910, the jam business was sold to Henry Jones Co-operative Ltd. and in 1913, Hoadley's Chocolates Ltd was formed.