A promotional film by Turners Productions for the Norwegian firm Kavli, the Primula cheese makers.  The film elaborates on the historical links between Norway, Scarborough and the North East of England.  It documents the Kavli chain of cheese production from Norway to the UK base for Primula cheese manufacture in Gateshead’s Team Valley, opened in 1959.   Includes footage of the Festival of Norway in Scarborough in 1966, which celebrated the founding of the town by Viking settlers 1,000 years...

A promotional film by Turners Productions for the Norwegian firm Kavli, the Primula cheese makers.  The film elaborates on the historical links between Norway, Scarborough and the North East of England.  It documents the Kavli chain of cheese production from Norway to the UK base for Primula cheese manufacture in Gateshead’s Team Valley, opened in 1959.   Includes footage of the Festival of Norway in Scarborough in 1966, which celebrated the founding of the town by Viking settlers 1,000 years previously, and the automated production process for Primula cheese and Kavli crispbreads in the Kavli factory at Team Valley Trading Estate, Gateshead.  Kavli first set up operations in Cramlington back in 1936. The film opens with stills of Norwegian fjord and mountain scenery. Title: A Taste of Norway Views of fjords and mountains are followed by shots of sea lashing a coastline. The first sequence is of illustrated pictures used to introduce the historical relationship between the North East and Scandinavia: Saxon women and children looking scared; Viking invaders; Viking longships landing on the Yorkshire coast; people fleeing inland from the Scarborough coastline.  These illustrate the story of the founding of Scarborough, or Skarthaborg as it was named by its Viking settlers. A travelling shot follows from the sea towards the Scarborough harbour and lighthouse. A classic tall ship is sailing just off the Yorkshire coast.  A sailor from the Norwegian navy stands at the stern of the "Valkyrien" ship's boat carrying crew to shore, which is flying the Norwegian flag. Heading towards the Scarborough harbour, six sailors stand at the bow of the boat. There is a general view of the boat in the far distance as it sails towards Scarborough harbour. General view of Scarborough South Bay.  A group of sailors in Norwegian navy uniform stroll side by side along Scarborough harbour quayside. A parade heads along a Scarborough road as part of the Festival of Norway celebrations of the town’s founding 1,000 years ago.  Marchers are headed by flag bearers.  A large brass band in blue and white outfits marches past.  A crowd of young school girls march by in the Festival of Norway parade wearing brightly coloured Victorian dresses and bonnets, and carrying bouquets.  They wave as they pass the camera.  Another band of young schoolchildren march past in black and white Quaker (?) dress. A sign at a doorway to a building reads: “Velkommen Til Scarborough”. A float with a sign for “Scarborough Hotels” drives by carrying a replica Viking longship on which a Viking raider in a helmet with long horns stands.  The float passes amusement arcades and shops on the sea front, South Bay, Scarborough. The façade of Albemarle Chambers on the corner of Albemarle Crescent and Westborough, (sporting signs for Cock Fowler and Outhet Solicitors and the Reslock Ltd. Advertising Agents), is decorated with swags and a large “1,000 Years” sign. A group of Norwegian folk dancers from Oslo, dressed in traditional costumes and waving small flags, ride by on a float.  A man in grass skirt fancy dress pulls a replica Viking long boat sledge carrying two little children dressed as Vikings. Six young women in red and white costume walk along a path below the Grand Hotel.  Two Norwegian navy officers walk down a Scarborough shopping street.  A mid-shot follows of a young woman in red pencil skirt suit [head not shown] rushing past swinging a branded Norwegian cheese paper carrier bag. Women shoppers stroll down the Scarborough town centre street. Three women dressed in traditional costumes of both Norway and Scarborough walk along the Foreshore Road promenade in South Bay, Scarborough. General view of a Scarborough town centre street, the Norwegian flag flying from a building on a corner.  Inside a Scarborough department store (possibly Marshall and Snelgrove?), there are displays of Norway’s traditional food, women customers browsing, and a woman manning a trade stall promoting “Cheese from Norway”.  The assistant at the stall offers a female customer cheese samples to try, and she buys one of the cheese products on show and pops it into a wire basket. Back at the Festival of Norway, folk dancers and Norwegian fiddlers perform, probably on the Esplanade in Scarborough. The film then looks at Norwegian fjord and mountain scenery around Sogndal on the northern shore of the Sognefjorden, where goat herds and cows graze, from which the milk originates to make Kalvi’s Norwegian cheeses.  A general view of Sogndal follows.  A truck pulls into a dairy where two men unload milk churns.  The next scenes are of cheese production from curd and whey: some traditional elements are retained in the mechanical production process.  The footage includes crude curd shredding in an electrically driven mill, mixing salt into a vat full of curd, packing milled curd into moulds where new cheese is pressed for 24 hours, and the large rindless Cheshire and Cheddar type cheeses ripening in stores. Fishermen weigh fish on the quayside at the Norwegian port of Bergen.  Live fish are sold from tanks at the harbour.  Trading at Bergen includes fur and other tourist products, as well as a fruit market.  A row of the old wooden houses of fish merchants line the road near the harbour.   General views of picturesque Bergen follow. Exterior and interior shots of the Kavli cheese factory located in Bergen are shown.  A portrait painting of Olaf Kavli introduces the founder of the Kavli Group and the inventor in 1924 of Primula, the world's first durable cheese spread.  There are various shots of the Kavli cheese production line.  A van loaded with Primula Cheese heads off from the Kavli factory.  A cargo ship docked at Bergen harbour sails off, passing Norwegian fjord coastline.  The ship, “Jupiter”, is then pictured in the Port of Tyne, where a forklift truck loads a cargo of Primula Cheese into a truck.  The truck pulls up at the purpose built Kavli factory in Team Valley industrial estate, Gateshead. Close-up of the Kavli name on the exterior façade. A Kavli employee pushes a steel cheese tester into large cheeses, extracting a small sample for a final quality check.  A man in white lab coat carries away samples of the different cheeses on a plate.  The packaging production line for the half-moon and round foil-wrapped and packaged Primula Cheese spread is shown, with mainly women workers at conveyor belts, close-ups of machinery in operation, women closing lids on the branded boxes.  One of the packers boxes up Norwegian crisp bread in the Kavli branded box.  The next sequence documents crisp bread production.  Processes include moisture checking samples of whole rye meal under an infra-red lamp, the weighing and adding of bright orange vitamin B powder, reams of thin crisp bread running through a long baking machine where it is browned and baked.  At the hygienic, long enclosed production line, “at no time is the crisp bread touched by hand”.  Two men man the production line here, one man at the machine control panel.  Another machine cuts the crisp bread into leaf thin slices.  The crisp bread slices move along the packing belt, and in a revolving machine.  A display for camera of Kavli Primula products follows, including margarine, dressed crab cheese, slim bread. Primula cheese products are loaded into a lorry at the Team Valley factory loading bay and drives off.  A convoy of delivery lorries heads down a road in the Team Valley estate. A woman walks into her modern kitchen (a hint of Scandinavian style) and begins to prepare food for a party, using Primula Cheese spread on hors d'oeuvre.  There are close-ups of the food preparation and successive shots of the variety of party food that could be made with Primula Cheese, using sardines, pineapple, crackers and tangerine, boat shapes made of pear halves with crisp bread sail shapes, cucumber, prunes and walnuts, peach halves, eggs, and cheese on cocktail sticks with fruit. Chefs set up an extravagant buffet table of food, the centre piece an imposing dark-glazed pigs’s head decorated with Primula Cheese spread.  Close-up of the pig’s head on a plate and of cocktails. Shelves are packed with boxes of Primula Cheese. The final shots are of different Kavli factories in Scandinavia and other countries. General views of the Norwegian landscape and a final shot of the Kavli Primula product in boxes close the film. Credit: Produced for Kavli Limited Makers of the World – Famous “Primula” Products End shot of the Norwegian fjord scenery.