Get a Wiggly Jiggly Jump on Jell-O
Celery? Coffee? Bubble gum? Pickles!? Yes, along with ’seasoned tomato’, they were all at one point unpopular flavors of Jell-O®, “America’s Most Famous Dessert.” (The spiel: JELL-O ® is a registered trademark of Kraft Foods Holdings, Inc. However, Jell-O has become such a generic term now that it must be sold as Jell-O® Brand to maintain its trademark status.)
In 1897, a cough medicine maker named Pearle Waits tinkered with Peter Cooper’s patented gelatin, turning it into a fruity dessert, which his wife named Jell-O. Back then, however, America was not quite “gellin.” So Waits pawned off the reformulated Jell-O to a fellow (and more successful) medicine salesman named Frank Woodward in 1899 for $450. Woodward was about to sell off Jell-O again for a measely $35 when his media campaign finally began to show some promising results.
It took door-to-door salesmen with in-home demonstrations, an advertising blitz, and a ton of free samples in order to convince homemakers that turning powdered flavoring into an unnaturally jiggly concoction was a truly natural dessert choice. In 1902, Woodward proclaimed in an advertisement in the Ladies’ Home Journal that Jell-O was, in fact, already “America’s Most Famous Dessert.”
Old Jello-O Advertisement
He proved it with an accompanying recipe book addled with colorful illustrations by celebrity artists like Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish. There was no doubt that Woodward’s prophesy had rung true: By 1906 sales of Jell-O had reached $1 million and four years later, revenues had doubled (Link).
Half a century and three owners later, Peter Cooper’s “Improvement in the Preparation of Portable Gelatine” succeeded in getting some solid respect.
November 12, 2008
Tags: food, innovation, jell-o, trivia Posted in: Fun Food Facts
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