Region Riverina contributor Chris Roe steps back into the firing line as Bendigo stakes its claim to be the home of the Chiko Roll. Photo and Art: Chris Roe.
According to celebrity chef Matt Preston, there are only “two true Aussie ideas this nation has added to the fast-food lexicon”.
One is the deep-fried dim sim, and the other is the legendary Chiko Roll, which turns 75 this month.
Created by Bendigo boilermaker and dairy farmer Frank McEncroe, the upsized spring roll was launched at the Wagga Wagga Jubilee Show in August 1951 and it was originally dubbed the “Chicken Roll” despite containing no chicken whatsoever.
Inspired by the more diminutive Chinese pastry, McEncroe’s roll was a thick, chewy, egg-and-flour pastry tube filled with cabbage, barley, carrot, celery, onion, and meat (originally mutton but now beef) that could be eaten easily with one hand at the footy.
McEncroe and his brothers Jerry and Leo continued to fine-tune the recipe in Bendigo and renamed the savoury snack the “Chiko” before moving the manufacturing operation from Bendigo to Melbourne.
Their Coburg-based company Frozen Food Industries rolled out the Chiko en masse and it was soon available in fish and chip shops and milk bars across the country. Around 40 million were sold each year at its peak during the 1970s.
Manufacturing moved to Bathurst in 1995 where automated production lines can deliver thousands of rolls every hour.
While the facts surrounding the creation of this Australian culinary icon are not in dispute, three Australian cities today claim to be the spiritual home of the Chiko, and the Victorian city of origin has reignited the 75-year-old feud.
The argument goes as follows: Bendigo insists it is the rightful birthplace because Frank McEncroe invented and developed the recipe there. Wagga Wagga argues that a product is only truly born when it is first introduced to the public. Bathurst, meanwhile, claims ownership through more than three decades of manufacturing and its ongoing production.
A Bendigo Hotel and Motorbike Museum is celebrating the city’s 75-year link to the Chiko legacy. Photo: Black Swan Hotel Bendigo.
In this latest round, Bendigo has stolen the march on its Chiko rivals Wagga and Bathurst and is celebrating its heritage with a month of celebrations at the Black Swan Hotel and Motorbike Museum.
The NSW claimants have so far let the August anniversary slide past unnoticed and manufacturer Simplot Australia has also been quiet about the semisesquicentennial (75 years).
At this point, I should probably declare my own stake in the story as I accidentally sparked the last standoff between the three cities in 2024 when I unveiled my inflatable sculpture “Monolith”.
The two-metre tall Chiko was intended to poke fun at Wagga’s tenuous link to the snack, but instead, I found myself at the centre of a media storm, defending Wagga’s claim across local and national news platforms and receiving an honorary mention in NSW Parliament from Dr Joe McGirr.
After a month on display at the Station Gallery in Wagga and another month in the Museum of the Riverina, my big Chiko retired quietly to the back deck at my home until Bendigo curator Ivan Sun reached out this year and invited me to bring it south of the border for the celebration.
Does Wagga’s claim to be the birthplace of the Chiko Roll hold up against Bendigo’s and Bathurst’s? Photo: Chris Roe.
For the record, McEncroe’s descendants continue to back Bendigo’s claim. In 2016, Jedda Noonan told the local ABC that the family “wanted to put the story straight” while niece Mary Donaldson lamented the lack of a permanent memorial.
“I think we’d like to see acknowledgement in Bendigo somewhere, because the council pulled down the original dairy and the cool room where the Chiko Roll was invented,” she said.
A decade on and neither Bendigo, Wagga, nor Bathurst have moved to install any sort of permanent artistic tribute. The Simplot factory has a small inscription beneath a sign bearing the company logo that reads “Home of the Chiko Roll” and Bendigo and Wagga’s regional museums occasionally display the gold-plated Chiko’s that they were given 25 years ago at the 50th anniversary celebrations.
The feud is unlikely to cool any time soon and in the meantime a kitsch tourism opportunity goes begging. Which town will be the first to definitively stake its claim and join the Aussie pantheon of Big Things alongside the Pineapple, the Banana and the Merino?
Has the moment arrived to unveil a seriously Big Chiko?
