The Macaroon Bar: Potato, Sugar and Coconut From Coatbridge

Each major claim carries one of three labels. established means supported by primary records, official bodies or several independent reliable sources. shared means the core fact is sound but sources disagree on details, dates or interpretation. traditional means widely repeated but not traceable to a primary or independent source.

Everything about the 1931 invention comes from Lees itself, repeated in later press coverage and on Wikipedia. That makes it good evidence of what the company says, not proof of what happened in a Coatbridge workroom. No 1930s advertisement, trade directory entry or newspaper report has been located for this card. The potato tradition is even harder to date: recipe writers agree it is traditional, and none can say who first did it. The business history after the 1950s is better documented, through the company's own timeline and through reporting of its takeovers. Alan Davidson's The Oxford Companion to Food (3rd edn, ed. Tom Jaine, 2014) has no entry on the Scottish macaroon bar or on Lees; it is used for the history of the word "macaroon", of fondant and of related coconut sweets, mostly in entries signed by the confectionery historian Laura Mason.

What a macaroon bar is

established A Scottish macaroon bar has three parts: a firm, white, very sweet fondant centre; a thin layer of chocolate; and an outer coat of desiccated coconut, usually toasted. It is chewy rather than crisp. In Scotland the word "macaroon" on its own usually means this bar, not a biscuit.

The name

established "Macaroon" came into English from French macaron, which in turn came from the Italian maccarone, a form of the same word that gives "macaroni". Almond macaroons were made in French and Italian religious houses centuries ago, and coconut later replaced almond in many recipes. The Scottish bar shares coconut and sweetness with these older macaroons but is a different confection: it has no almond, no egg-white biscuit and no baking.

established Laura Mason's entry on macaroons in The Oxford Companion to Food (3rd edn, 2014) sets out the British history of the word. Until the 20th century, she writes, macaroons "referred exclusively" to small domed biscuit-like confections of finely chopped sweet almonds, sugar and beaten egg white, lightly baked. Recipes appear in cookery books from at least the late 17th century, often baked on a wafer and close to baked marzipan. They were served with wine and liqueurs, crushed into trifles and used to decorate creams and syllabubs. Mrs Beeton (1861) thought they cost little more to buy from a good confectioner than to make. Ratafias were a variant made with some bitter almonds. The Scottish bar therefore borrowed an old name in the 20th century for something entirely new.

The potato fondant

established The home method uses a small amount of plain, cold, smooth mashed potato. Icing sugar is beaten in a little at a time until the mixture becomes a stiff, pliable paste. A modern recipe from Scottish Scran uses about 120 g of potato to 450–500 g of icing sugar, three to four times the potato's weight, adding sugar until the mass stops being sticky. The paste is shaped, chilled, dipped in melted chocolate and rolled in coconut.

shared Why it works is easy to explain. Cooked potato supplies water and starch, which dissolve and bind the sugar into a smooth, firm fondant, and its mild flavour vanishes under so much sweetness. Who first thought of it is not known. Scottish Scran states plainly that it is unclear who first used potato and sugar for the centre, and this card has found no dated early recipe. The Oxford Companion to Food does not mention potato in any confection of this kind.

A fondant centre

established Whether made from potato at home or from syrup in a factory, the macaroon's centre behaves like fondant. The Companion explains that true fondant is made by boiling sugar and glucose syrup to the soft-ball stage, then working it on a cold surface until it turns from a clear liquid to a white, crumbly solid, and kneading it smooth. The aim is a mass of minute crystals in a supersaturated sugar solution, which gives the "creamy" texture. Fondant keeps almost indefinitely, takes pastel colours and is today mainly a filling for chocolates, often called "crème". The Companion dates it to the middle of the 19th century, probably in France, though one historian has suggested an Ottoman origin. The potato method reaches a similar result without boiling: the potato's water dissolves part of the icing sugar and its starch binds the rest into a firm, smooth paste.

Coconut ice and the "Jap cake"

established The closest traditional British relation is coconut ice, which Laura Mason describes in the Companion as a home-made English confection of grated coconut mixed with sugar syrup boiled to the thread stage and stirred to a slightly grainy texture. Half is often coloured pink and set on top of the white half. Nobody knows why it is called "ice"; it is not frozen. Desiccated coconut is often used in place of fresh. The macaroon bar puts the coconut on the outside of a sugar centre instead of mixing it through.

shared Mason adds that, for no clear reason, several sugar and coconut confections popular in Britain in the early 20th century carried the prefix "Jap" or "Japanese", such as Jap nuggets and Japanese dessert, a harder, more caramel-like relative of coconut ice. In Scotland, she notes, a coconut-covered cake was still known as a "Jap cake". The fashion for coconut-coated sweets in the decades before 1931 is the setting in which a Coatbridge confectioner rolled his fondant bar in coconut, whatever the exact story of that day.

John Justice Lees and the 1931 story

established John Justice Lees was the son of a grocer in Newlands Street, Coatbridge. The company dates its Macaroon Bar to 1931 and says he developed it while experimenting with ingredients in his father's store, near the site of the present factory. Wikipedia, drawing on a 2011 business profile, places the work in a workshop above the shop.

traditional The fuller version, told by the company and widely repeated, is that Lees was trying to make a smooth chocolate fondant bar. The result was unsatisfactory, so he tried coating it in coconut, and the Macaroon Bar was born. The story is specific and plausible. It has not been checked against any surviving notebook, ledger or contemporary report.

Branded bar versus home recipe

shared It is often said that Lees invented the Scottish macaroon. The evidence supports a narrower claim: Lees made and branded a commercial macaroon bar from 1931 and became its best-known maker. It does not show that Lees invented potato fondant, or that every home-made macaroon descends from the Lees bar. Wikipedia states that the Lees fondant is made from sugar, glucose, water and egg white, which, if accurate, means the factory bar does not use potato at all. Lees has not published a full recipe, so the point is left open here.

From shop to factory

established Growth came after the Second World War. In the 1950s Lees added teacakes, snowballs and other bars, doubled its workforce and bought a former cinema about 200 yards from the Newlands Street shop. John J. Lees stepped down as chairman and managing director at the age of 70, in the 1970s, when turnover was about £850,000.

established Carol Foreman, in Made in Scotland (2nd edn, 2010), working from company material, describes the cinema. It was the old Garden cinema, acquired by John Justice Lees and about 200 yards along the street from his father's shop. The stalls became the production floor and the balcony the store, where the old row and seat numbers served as stock locations; the projection room held more stock, and the former ticket booths became shops selling misshapen sweets. Tablet, mint ice and snowballs joined the Macaroon Bar.

traditional Foreman also records the brand's place in popular memory: by the 1950s, she writes, macaroon bars were almost as much a part of the football terraces as half-time pies and Bovril. The company jingle began "Lees', Lees', more if you please, / All of us beg on our bended knees". One line of the original jingle used a racist term and was later changed.

shared Sources differ on what came first. Wikipedia describes the Macaroon Bar and the Snowball as the company's original products; the company's own timeline places snowballs in the 1950s. This card follows the company.

Ownership changes

established Lees entered meringues in 1982 through a joint venture, Heather Cameron Foods, which it bought outright in 1989. Trading in the 1980s was difficult, and after record losses in 1990 the company was sold to Northumbrian Fine Foods in March 1991. It returned to independent Scottish ownership in 1993, ran two Coatbridge factories for a time, and in August 1998 moved everything into a new purpose-built factory of about 82,000 sq ft.

established Foreman adds the detail of the rescue. By Christmas 1992 the company was heading for liquidation, and staff did not know whether the factory would reopen after New Year. Its meringue subsidiary, Heather Cameron, helped keep it going. In early 1993 Raymond Miquel, who had built Bell's from a small distiller into an international whisky brand, took control with a Danish partner, Klaus Perch-Nielsen, and returned the firm to confectionery. To mark ten years since the rescue, Lees bought Waverley Bakery, founded in Edinburgh in 1908 by the Zaccardelli and Cervi families and, Foreman says, Scotland's only cone and wafer maker. Lees later sold the wafer business to Orkla in 2016.

shared Production figures vary. Foreman says more than 50 million Lees Snowballs were sold in the UK each year and that Lees was the UK's largest meringue maker, with 85 per cent of retail sales; the company's timeline gives output of more than 250 million snowballs a year by 2001. The two may measure different things, and neither is independent.

established By 2001, the company's 70th year, output exceeded 250 million snowballs a year and turnover reached £9 million. Lees Foods plc floated on the AIM market in 2005, recorded turnover of more than £20 million in 2011, and was delisted in 2012 after a management buyout. In January 2023 Finsbury Food Group bought all of Lees Foods for £5.7 million in cash. STV reported that about 230 people worked at the Coatbridge factory. These are company-wide figures covering meringues, snowballs, teacakes and other lines, not macaroon bars alone.

A Coatbridge product, a Scottish market

established Lees is still made in Coatbridge, and its market is mainly Scottish. A 2011 business profile cited by Wikipedia put about 80 per cent of sales in Scotland. The jingle "Lees, Lees, more if you please" is part of the brand's local identity.

Fête and kitchen

traditional Home-made potato macaroon is widely remembered as a treat for church fêtes, school fairs and fundraising stalls, and recipe sites describe it as a family recipe passed down. That is a strong popular tradition, but this card has found no study of it.

• The Scottish macaroon bar contains no almonds.
• "Macaroon" and "macaroni" come from the same Italian word.
• Home-made macaroon uses three to four times as much icing sugar as potato by weight.
• Lees began above a grocer's shop in Coatbridge.
• In 2001 Lees was making more than 250 million snowballs a year.
• Lees was bought for £5.7 million in 2023.
• Until the 20th century, a British macaroon always meant an almond biscuit.
• Coconut ice is not frozen, and nobody knows why it is called "ice".
• Lees made its sweets in a former cinema, the Garden, using the old seat numbers to find its stock.
• Lees was rescued in 1993 by Raymond Miquel, the former chairman of Bell's whisky.

• Disputed: John Justice Lees created the bar by accident in 1931. The story, that a batch of chocolate fondant went wrong and he covered it in coconut, comes from the company. No independent record of the event has been found.
• Myth: Lees invented the Scottish macaroon. The evidence supports only a narrower claim: Lees made and branded a commercial macaroon bar from 1931 and became its best-known maker. Nobody knows who first made potato macaroon at home.
• Disputed: the Lees bar contains potato. Home recipes use mashed potato and icing sugar. Wikipedia states the Lees fondant is sugar, glucose, water and egg white, but Lees has not published a full recipe.
• Myth: The macaroon bar is a kind of French macaron or almond macaroon. The names share a root, but the Scottish bar has no almond, no egg-white biscuit and no baking. Until the 20th century, "macaroon" in Britain meant only the small almond biscuit.
• Disputed: how many snowballs Lees makes. Carol Foreman says more than 50 million a year, while the company's timeline gives more than 250 million a year by 2001. The two may measure different things, and neither is independent.