The Snack Story: A history of Canada’s favourite snack foods

By Gabby Peyton

Everyone loves a good origin story — and a delicious snack. Naturally then, the creation myths of snack foods in Canada will be enjoyed from coast to coast. In every small town and big city, we all have our favourite local goodies and big box store nibbles, but when it comes to the history of Canada’s beloved quick eats, some of them have a surprising (and not-so-Canadian) history. So here, in chronological order (not by rank of delicious, as it would be too contentious) is the history of Canada’s favourite snack foods.

Cherry Blossom Candy (1890s)

Chances are if you saw the iconic yellow box of a Cherry Blossom candy in the store 30 years ago, it looked pretty much like it does today — and probably 50 years ago, too. The chocolatey treat, filled with gooey cherry liquid filling and a candied cherry, has graced confectionary store shelves across Canada since the 1890s. But, like other famous candies that were invented at the beginning of the catapulting candy market of the late 19th century, it was invented in the United States in 1883 by Walter M. Lowney. Lowney first opened his chocolate factory in Boston where he invented the Cherry Blossom, but then opened a Canadian branch of the company in the late 1890s. The most famous factory in Smith Falls, Ontario remained his most productive and was eventually taken over by Hersey’s Canada who still own the factory and produce Cherry Blossoms to this day.

Pal-O-Mine bars (c. 1920)

Ganong is one of the longest-running Canadian-owned chocolate companies, still operating today in St. Stephen, New Brunswick. It was established by brothers James and Gilbert Ganong in 1873 and is known to have popularized the heart-shaped chocolate box for Valentine’s Day and to this day they still ship their hand-dipped chocolates worldwide. But it is Ganong’s iconic Pal-o-Mine bar that is one of the most recognizable products, a chocolate bar with crafted brown sugar fudge centre and peanuts inside. The Pal-o-Mine is one of the oldest continually wrapped candy bars in North America and was invented by confectionery Ed Bosein, a pro candy-maker from Baltimore, in 1920. According to chocolate lore, it is said that they are called Pal-o-Mine because each packet contains two little bars, one for you and one for a pal.

Purity Kisses (c. 1924)

Products from Purity Factories make it into all the care packages of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians the world over. The longstanding confectionery got its start in the early 1900s as Wood’s West End Candy Store owned by Frederick B. Wood who sold his confectionery empire to the Goobie family who turned it into Purity Factories in 1924. These days, one of their most popular candies is one of their oldest, the Purity Kisses, a chewy candy that comes in a variety of flavours. The chewy candies in the Assorted Kisses pack are offered up in five flavours: rum and butter, peanut butter, banana, coconut butterscotch and molasses.

Jos Louis (c.1932)

Contrary to popular belief, the Jos Louis snack cake is not named after famed American Boxer Joe Louis. Instead, its name is a tribute to the Vachon family who invented the iconic chocolate cake filled with creamy icing and encased in milk chocolate in the first place. The Quebec snack cake company Vachon was founded in 1923 by Joseph-Arcade Vachon and Rose-Anna Giroux when the couple moved to Sainte-Marie-de-Beauce and opened a bakery. The Jos Louis was invented in 1932, long before any of those American imitators invented the Ding Dong in 1967 and was a tribute to the Vachon’s sons Jos and Louis.

Coffee Crisp (c.1939)

Canadians love a double-double from Tim Hortons and while Nestle’s most beloved chocolate bar is much older than the famous coffee from Timmies’, the vibes are the same — sweet with just a hint of coffee flavour. These days, Coffee Crisp is probably the most beloved chocolate bar across Canada, the only place it’s available. The Coffee Crisp wafer chocolate bar is the descendant of the Wafer Crisp bar that was created by British confectioner Rowntree — the company opened a factory in Toronto in the late 1930s and started producing Bicrisps for the Canadian market in 1938. One year later they added the coffee flavour to the bar and Coffee Crisp was born, becoming iconically Canadian. Rowntree was purchased by Nestle Canada in 1988 and continues to pump out the bars to this day.

Hawkins Cheezies (c.1948)

Cheezies are the ubiquitous term for the puffed corn snack, just as Kleenex is for the paper facial tissue, but in fact, the name Cheezie is trademarked by W.T. Hawkins Limited who created the cheesy snack. Willard Trice Hawkins and Jim Marker actually developed the Cheezie in Chicago in the 1940s and then after moving the company to Belleville, Ontario, they started manufacturing Cheezies in an old canning factory in 1948. Initially marketed as the “Cheese Flavored Honeycomb Corn Puffs,” the method of production has changed, but the nickname Cheezie stuck and was trademarked by the company, establishing it forever as one of the best-known Canadian snack foods.

Pizza Pops (c.1964)

Most Canadians know and love Pizza Pops, the freezer favourite pockets of pizza filled with cheese, tomato sauce and pizza toppings, but many don’t know it was actually invented in Winnipeg, Manitoba. After dining on a less-than-stellar Panzerotti (the Italian deep-fried dough pockets) at a restaurant, Paul Faraci decided he could improve on the product, creating the Pizza Pop in 1964. They took off quickly throughout the city and eventually, Pizza Pops started being packaged and shipped across the province. Once Pillsbury took over operations in 1987 there was no stopping this handheld delight as Pizza Pops are now available across the country in every single grocery store freezer.

Ketchup Potato Chips (c.1970s)

One of the country’s most prized snacks is the ketchup chip. There’s nowhere else in the world that offers up this kind of flavour and YouTubers around the world sample them as part of “Best of Canadian snacks” challenges. But Canadians will be sad to learn that, in fact ketchup chips might not have been invented in Canada. There are two rivalling stories surrounding the creation of ketchup chips, one American and one Canadian. According to the Canadian side of things, snack company Hostess created ketchup chips in the late 1970s. Hostess was founded in Cambridge, Ontario, in 1935 by Edward Snyder, a potato farmer who began cooking chips on his mother’s stove and sold his company to E.W. Vanstone in 1955 who turned the brand into Hostess, which is now Frito Lay. On the American side of this snack story, it’s the Herr company, founded in 1946 in Nottingham, Pennsylvania, that takes the credit for ketchup chips — they claim their recipe was changed three times before releasing their ketchup chips in the early 1980s, and then teaming up with Heinz in the 1990s to make the best possible flavouring. These days, you can only get ketchup chips in Canada, and they are one of the most popular flavours on grocery store shelves, but we will never know if they are truly Canadian.

All-Dressed Potato Chips (c.1978)

One of the great Canadian mysteries surrounds a potato chip. A quick internet search of All-Dressed potato chips will lead you down a rabbit hole of threads, questions and flavour theories about this Canadian flavour of potato chip — what is the flavour of All-Dressed Chips? Well, the answer lies in its name: it is all of the flavours. That’s right, All-Dressed Chips are made up of barbecue, ketchup, salt and vinegar, and sour cream and onion chip flavourings. As for the inventor of the multifaceted snack, according to potato chip lore (and the company’s website), it was invented in 1978 by Yum Yum Chips. Based in Warwick, Quebec. The company was founded in 1959 by Louis de Gonzague et Paul Jalbert and it is said that de Gonzague came up with the idea of All-Dressed Chips in the office one day. And the rest is a confusing, but delicious history.