A Paddle Pop is a milk-based frozen dairy snack made by Streets (owned by the multi-national company Unilever) and sold in Australia, New Zealand and a few other countries. It is held for eating by a wooden stick which protrudes at the base and is known as a Paddle Pop stick (used commonly for arts and crafts and known also as a popsicle stick or craft stick). The brand has a mascot known as the Paddle Pop lion who appears on the product wrapper.
From its launch in 1953 by Street, the popularity of Paddle Pops mean that it is one of the best known brands in Australia. It is Streets Icecream's biggest volume item with A$70 million annual turnover.
Launched to the public in 1953 the brand had a 50-year anniversary in 2004 at which point it was one of the best known brands in Australia. In 2005 there was a spin-off product which was the Paddle Pop flavour in a dairy snack form. Since 2000, Paddle Pops have been produced in China. Paddle Pops is now available in twenty countries, although other countries may sell them under different brands from Streets' Heartbrand sister companies, Wall's and HB Ice Cream.
Streets came to media attention in 2010 when they reduced the size of the Paddle Pop by 15%. Streets claimed that this was to make them healthier but others attribute it to food inflation.
Over 97 million Paddle Pops are sold and eaten worldwide each year.
Paddle Pops were produced only in chocolate for the first two years. To date, over 100 flavours of Paddle Pop have been sold.
Current flavours are:
Discontinued and limited edition flavours have included: