Generations of soldiers spent long hours shining their shoes and boots with Kiwi brand wax polish. The company is apparently going out of business, as not enough people are shining their shoes anymore. Unbeknownst to me, it left the UK market last year.
Kiwi polish was invented by an Australian called William Ramsay. (His wife, Annie, was a New Zealander, hence the product’s name.) He sold his first tin of polish in 1906 and it took off when soldiers in the British and US armies adopted it during the first world war. In 1984, the brand was acquired by the Sara Lee Corporation, the consumer goods company best known for its frozen food. Yet despite Kiwi’s ubiquity, sales were sluggish and the company attempted a $2mn marketing blitz in 2004 with questionable lines such as “Unpolished shoes are the open fly of footwear”. The brand was sold on to SC Johnson, the Wisconsin-based company that also owns cleaning, pest control and storage brands Mr Muscle, Raid and Ziploc, in 2011. In Britain today, Kiwi is practically synonymous with shoe polish.
I contacted a customer service rep for SC Johnson to find out what was going on. “After a thorough evaluation, SC Johnson (SCJ) has decided to exit the Shoe Care business in the UK in order to redirect our investments and resources to the company’s strategic businesses and initiatives,” the rep replied over email. “With this decision, Kiwi will no longer be distributed by SCJ in this market.”
A spokesperson later added that the company had seen “a rise in casual shoes that don’t require formal polishing and an overall decrease in consumers polishing their shoes in the UK, but that it would continue to remain active in markets “where formal shoe care remains relevant”.
It was subsequently discontinued in both its native Australia and namesake New Zealand. And it’s going away in the US this month.
Now, it appears that SCJ makes the assessment that such markets don’t exist anymore, since recently American retailers of Kiwi were informed that the company is to discontinue the brand. Shoegazing has received this information from several from each other independent sources. Regarding when this would happen information is not fully clear. However one date stated is June 30 in 2024.
When reaching out to SC Johnson asking for a confirmation that the company will discontinue Kiwi, a spokesperson stated the following in an email: “SC Johnson is exploring our options for the KIWI® shoe care brand including a potential sale of the business in certain regions. KIWI® is an iconic and beloved brand that has been part of the SC Johnson family since 2011.”
So, maybe we’ll see another owner take over the Kiwi brand, at least in some markets. Or maybe SCJ change their minds and decide to continue themselves after all. Only time will tell. But the future certainly doesn’t look bright right now.
Indeed, even the military has given up on shoe shining. Roughout combat boots replaced smooth leather nearly two decades ago, and on the rare occasion when dress uniforms are worn, the footwear is far more likely to be patent leather rather than hand-polished.
Still, this looks more like a case of a massive conglomerate shedding a marginally-profitable holding rather than a true case of a once-popular product simply becoming outmoded. Lots of people still shine their shoes, after all, and Kiwi is the world’s most recognizable brand. (Saphir and other polishes are far superior but also radically more expensive.)
Then again, Shinola brand polish went away back in 1960, relegated nowadays to joke status. My favorite of which is this:
I still wear dress shoes and boots on a pretty regular basis and continue to keep them shined. I’ve got tins of Kiwi black and brown polish, along with a cloth and horsehair brush, in my desk drawer at work for touchups. But even I mostly use cream polishes and conditioners rather than Kiwi most of the time.
