History

The biscuit was created by Ian Norris and Alan Morrow. During 1958, they took a world trip looking for inspiration for new products. While in Britain, they found the Penguin biscuit and decided to try to “make a better one”.^[2]

Tim Tam went on to the market in 1964.^[3][4] They were named by Ross Arnott, who attended the 1958 Kentucky Derby and decided that the name of the winning horse, Tim Tam, was perfect for a planned new line of biscuits.^[5]

Apart from Penguins, products similar to Tim Tam include “Temptins” from Dick Smith Foods, New Zealand‘s “Chit Chats”,^[2] Australian Woolworths‘ home brand product “Choccy Slams”, the Coles Supermarkets‘ brand “Chocolate Surrenders” biscuits, and various similar “home-brand” products marketed by British supermarkets.

In 2003, Arnott’s sued Dick Smith Foods over their Temptin’ brand of chocolate biscuits, which Arnott’s alleged had diluted their trademark as a similar biscuit, in similarly designed packaging.^[6] The case was settled out of court.

Pepperidge Farm, a sister company of Arnott’s, began importing the Tim Tam to the United States in 2008.^[7] The Tim Tams are still “Made in Australia” and packaging in the US bears the slogan “Australia’s Favorite Cookie.” (“Cookie” being the American word for biscuit.) In 2017, an additional flavour, dark chocolate-mint, was produced for and introduced only in the American market.^[8]

As of 2021, a counterpart is sold in the Netherlands in Jumbo supermarkets under the name “Dip&Nip Cookies”.^[9]

Production

The original Arnott’s bakery, opened in 1865, was located in Newcastle, New South Wales.^[10] To date, manufacture of Tim Tams and other Arnott’s products has remained largely within Australia, including bakeries in Sydney, Adelaide, and Brisbane. In 2009, Arnott’s invested $A37 million in a state-of-the-art production line at its Brisbane facility, expecting to boost productivity and increase jobs.^[11]

At the Huntingwood bakery in Western Sydney, the production line turns out about 3,000 Tim Tams per minute and uses 20 tonnes of the biscuit’s cream filling and 27 tons of chocolate coating each work day.^[12][13] Biscuit dough, containing sugar, flour, colours and flavours, is mixed for 20 minutes. The dough is then given ‘the ol’ slap and tickle’ for around 90 minutes.^[14]Biscuits are then cut to 1mm thick, 11 holes are punched per biscuit and they are baked in gas ovens for 90 minutes. Freezing air cools the biscuits before they are flipped and filled with cream, dunked in chocolate and cooled again.^[15]