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We believe this to be the earliest of the labels we have, probably dating from the late 1950s, where back in those innocent days there was no need for the label to include any information on alcoholic content, any indication of ingredients, any indication of the volume of contents, any indication of an expiry date and certainly no need for a barcode!
In contrast to later labels, this label has a simpler version of the Whitbread hind's head logo with the hind's head shown in profile
The address given on the bottle’s label is the Chandy Bottling Company, London E.C.1.
The above three label variants date from, we believe, the early 1960s. The differences between the labels are certainly subtle, but incorporate the following changes: the update of the Whitbread hind's head logo from the 1950s version, the replacement of the word 'British' with the word 'non-alcoholic' and the giving of the Chandy Bottling Company's address in full as 52 Chiswell Street, London E.C.1 as opposed just giving it as London E.C.1
These two labels (one wide and one narrow variant of the same design) date from, we believe, the mid-1960s and now include the words 'sugar and saccharin added'.
We don’t know whether food labelling regulations of the day required them to do this or not (at the same time as there was no apparent requirement to give the alcoholic content!), but it today looks a strange thing to see on a label, when products these days are more likely to highlight 'no added sugar' and 'no artificial sweeteners'.
And finally we also have this label in our collection, which at first look doesn't appear to be anything to do with Chandy, but as the wording on it attests (see detail below), it is from a product from the Chandy Bottling Company, 52 Chiswell St, London E.C.1, proving that in addition to Chandy, the Chandy Bottling Company also made shandy for others.
1950s
1960s
1970s
City Cellar Shandy - late 1960s or early 1970s
The second and third labels (one shaped and one not shaped) show the Chandy Bottling Company as having a new address at 154-176 Albany Road, London S.E.5. These labels also drop the 'sugar and saccharin added' wording.
The fourth and fifth labels probably date from the final days of Chandy in the mid-1970s. These labels use the the modern format postcode, as opposed to the system of London postal districts (e.g. Camberwell, London S.E.5) that was in use from 1857 until it was adapted into the modern postcode system from 1970 to 1974. The Chandy Bottling Company's address on these labels is simply given as London E6 4LF, which postcode is today home to Britvic Soft Drinks Limited at 9 Roding Road, London.
All the 1970s labels, as stricter regulation presumably required it (including the 1963 Weights and Measures Act coming into force), give an indication of minimum contents (nine and a half fluid ounces) as well as an indication of the alcoholic content (not more than 2% proof).
Chandy bottle labels
These are the eleven different Chandy bottle labels we now have (two of them newly acquired in July 2017), plus one rarity that also carries the name of the Chandy Bottling Company. If you’re either expert enough on bottle labels to tell us the exact dates for any of these or able to help us acquire any label variants we don’t have (there is at least one - see our wants list) then we’d love to hear from you. Contact us
These five labels date from, we believe, the 1970s and feature a slightly bolder design than their 1960s counterparts. Collectively the five labels give three different addresses for the Chandy Bottling Company, and to that extent it is therefore a fairly straightforward matter for us to put the labels in chronological order.
The first label gives the familiar 52 Chiswell Street address for the Chandy Bottling Company and includes the new slogan 'the handy shandy', which Chandy registered as part of their trade mark label image in January 1970 (see here).