Nippy's adapts to make its juice an icon of South Australia but Berri Juices falls to fate of foreign ownership

Nippy's Fruit Juices was founded by Alic Knispel in the 1930s in the Riverland.

Nippy's Fruit Juices is a 100% South Australian family that has become Australia’s largest supplier of fresh fruit juices and become a state icon.

Nippy’s was founded by Alic Knispel in the 1930s. The Knispel family originally settled in the Barossa Valley but, as a young teen, Alic left the family homestead, and travelled to the Riverland where he bought a mixed fruit property. He began to concentrate on growing citrus fruits rather than other fruits. Alic decided to packing them his own and his neighbours’ oranges. He also successfully sold his crop into the Adelaide fruit and vegetable market up until the 1960s.

This success was halted when the state government set up a citrus board to fix prices and license packers, growers and resellers. Alic’s operation was halted by being within a metropolitan area, which wasn’t allowed by the citrus board. When the Knispel family opened a second packing house outside the metropolitan area but found themselves with surplus juice-quality oranges. This led to the idea to turn them into juice. It expanded from a small kitchen operation to a major business known as Nippy’s, after a nickname for the family. got from their family name.
Nippy’s product range has expended beyond fruit juices to flavoured dairy drinks and fruit-flavoured mineral waters.

Berri Juices (Berri Ltd) was formed in 1943 using fruit that dominated the Riverland economy.

But Berri Juices shared the fate of South Australian companies such as Farmers Union and Dairy Vale when they were taken over by National Foods, who closed the Berri factory in 2010 and moved its juice production out of the region.

The Berri company entity, with brands such as Australian Fresh, Daily Juice and Just Juice, was bought back from National Foods and survived until Philippines-based San Miguel achieved 100% ownership.