Kiwi (shoe polish)

rdf:langString Kiwi (shoe polish)

rdf:langString Kiwi

rdf:langString Kiwi logo.png

rdf:langString The Kiwi logo

rdf:langString Sara Lee Corporation

rdf:langString Kiwi is a shoe polish brand, now owned by S. C. Johnson. Originally made by an Australian company, which first marketed the product there in 1906, as of 2005, it was sold in about 180 countries. Kiwi is the dominant shoe polish in some countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States, where it has about two-thirds of the market. In Malaysia and Singapore, Kiwi has become such a household name for shoe polish that the word "kiwi" has been genericized into a verb in the Malay language, meaning "to polish one's shoes". The polish was developed in Australia by William Ramsay, grandfather of actor Robin Ramsay, who named it "Kiwi" after the flightless bird native to New Zealand, the home country of his wife, Annie Elizabeth Meek. Its success in Australia was matched overseas after it was adopted by both the British and United States armies in World War I. In the UK, Kiwi polish was manufactured for many years at the company's British headquarters in Ealing. That facility manufactured for the UK market and exported the Kiwi brand to much of Europe and the Middle East. In the mid-1970s, as part of a major streamlining, the UK factory was closed, and production was switched to France. The UK operation moved to Yateley becoming, effectively, a sales and marketing office, with distribution contracted to a third party. In 1980, production for the UK market moved back to the UK, and was housed in a factory near Huddersfield. The UK head office was relocated to Maidstone, in Kent, where Kiwi had other product interests. Following a global merger with Nicholas Laboratories, the UK head office was again relocated to Slough, at the Nicholas building on the Bath Road.