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Our history
Our story starts way back in the 1995
Levin-local, licorice-loving Roger Halliwell and his son Regan James (that's who we got our RJ's name from!) started making licorice with the belief they could make it better than anything they could buy.
Roger and Regan had big dreams for RJ's and by 1998, they were delighted to be market leaders. The kiwis had done it! The factory in Levin was cranking, with tonnes of licorice being made daily to satisfy demand.
Even with a booming factory and a team of lolly makers perfecting the recipe, Roger and RJ weren't done. “What if we coated our licorice with chocolate?” they wondered.Marrying together licorice and chocolate was no easy task. During their many tests a thought occurred to them... “what if we put the chocolate inside the licorice?”And so, in the year 2000, this dream came true. The arrival of the RJ’s iconic licorice choc log, a world first. Licorice lovers around the world couldn’t get enough of it.
Our Kiwi made confectionery continues to be enjoyed globally. With over 10,000,000 units sold outside of NZ annually, RJ’s are extremely proud to be waving the NZ flag and reaching millions of people in all corners of the globe with our amazing sweets.
RJ’s employs over 120 people in our home of Levin and as a team we’re proud of our contribution to the local community. Such is the magic of RJ’s, that one splendid mouthful became the passion for us all to spread sweet joy and confectionery magic to the world.
In 2018 RJ’s seized the opportunity to add some famous confectionery brands to our range! Expanding to include iconic Kiwi favourites like Mackintosh’s, Oddfellows, Fabulicious and Heards we took our passion for confectionery and married it with the skill we have as lolly makers. Alongside these exciting new treats, we even started making Black Knight, allowing us to look after even more licorice lovers with the flavours they love.
What’s next? Well, us lolly makers are constantly cooking up ideas, twists, mash ups, textures, fizzes and new flavours – and our amazing customers inspire us every day with ideas! We’ve achieved things we’ve dreamed of and have even bigger plans for the future. We’d love you to join the conversation about how we can just keep getting better – hop on onto our Social channels to stay up to date with the latest news, flavours, announcements, taste testing and giveaways.
