Angel Delight: 'A taste to tempt any palate'

The famous powdered instant dessert mix was introduced by Bird’s (then part of General Foods Ltd) in 1967 and came in several brightly coloured flavours. The sweet treat swiftly became a staple of household cupboards throughout the land and an undisputed icon of the Seventies.

A forerunner to Angel Delight was ‘Instant Whip’, an innovative dessert made by Alfred Bird and Sons which was launched in 1955 and promoted as ‘A whipped creamy delight WITHOUT COOKING!’ (made in 1 minute – ready to eat in 5 minutes!) Instant Whip began life as part of the Jell-O family within General Foods and was known as ‘Jell-O Instant Pudding’ in the USA. It was re-branded as ‘Instant Whip’ for the British market and originally came in two flavours – Strawberry and Vanilla (with Butterscotch and Raspberry being added shortly afterwards). The new product in the form of a powder added to milk was an immediate success, capitalising on the contemporary craze for convenience foods, which provided a quick and easy way of whipping up a sweet treat for pudding. The Instant Whip range was later extended to ten tempting flavours including pineapple and mint cream.

Dream Topping, another sweet convenience product, was introduced by Bird’s in 1964. This was a powdered whipped cream substitute which could be added to traditional desserts such as trifles and jellies and was marketed as ‘a great standby to have in the cupboard’. It was also billed as the economy option - ‘Dream Topping whips up just like fresh cream…but it costs a lot less!’

The advent of Angel Delight is described in a company history of General Foods Ltd: ‘Then in 1967, came a dessert product which, in its way, was almost as much a technological innovation as the original Instant Whip. It was called Angel Delight and it was entirely a product of the Banbury research capacity. To a certain extent it borrowed from the known technology both of Instant Whip and Dream Topping, but it was more than just a marriage of the two. If ever a product can be said to have been tailor-made to fit in with known consumer preferences it is Angel Delight. Research showed that there was a ready market for a bland, quickly-made creamy textured dessert in certain clearly identified flavours, and Angel Delight was produced to satisfy this market. It was an immediate success, and straight away almost doubled the instant dessert market. The taste of Angel Delight has been aptly compared to “strawberries and cream whirled up”. This, with its implications of coolness under a hot summer sun, was taken by the company as a background theme to the heavy advertising campaign with which Angel Delight was promoted’ (J. Foley, The Food Makers: A History of General Foods, p.59).

The new dessert product was so successful that it was soon possible to extend the flavour range from the original three – Strawberry, Raspberry and Mint Chocolate – to include Banana, Chocolate, Butterscotch, Lemon & Lime and Orange. Further flavours of Blackcurrant, Peach and Coffee & Walnut were added to the Angel Delight portfolio by the end of the ‘70s. The brand was a virtually instant success and reportedly achieved sales of £2 million in the first year, aided by a massive marketing push which was spearheaded by free sample giveaways.

As this press advert for Banana flavour Angel Delight (1973) by the Leo Burnett-LPE advertising agency indicates, the fact that the powdered product could be easily mixed up to form a delicious mousse by children themselves was designed to appeal to busy working mums of the period who didn’t necessarily have time to cook a traditional family meal in the evening.

In the advert shown here the child model’s fashionable “pudding bowl” haircut and brightly patterned clothes are typical of the period and the reference in the accompanying text to the pop singer David Cassidy provides a further nod to the cultural zeitgeist.

Angel Delight reigned supreme for two decades as Britain’s most popular instant dessert. In 1986 a new sugar free version was launched containing NutraSweet, ‘the sweetener that tastes like sugar’. It came in three flavours – Chocolate, Banana and Wild Strawberry.

In 1989 General Foods was amalgamated into the Kraft business and in 2004 the latter divested their Bird’s brands to Premier Foods. In more recent times Angel Delight has been reformulated by Premier to remove many of the artificial flavourings and sweeteners and the range has been expanded to include Unicorn Dessert kits (‘an exciting multi-layered dessert…with colour changing sparkles’) and ready-to-eat pots.

Eve Read
Archive Collections Manager

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