Jelly-O Company

Jell-O was invented in 1897 in LeRoy, New York by a carpenter named Pearle Bixby Wait.  Wait also made and sold patent medicines, so he knew how to add colorings and flavorings to prettify products of unsavory origins – such as the boiled calves feet used to make gelatin.

Pearle Bixby Wait

It was his wife, May who came up with the name Jell-O by attaching to the word ‘jell’ the ‘O’, a popular ending for product names at the time. Wait registered Jell-O as a trademark in 1897. The first four flavors of the gelatin desert were orange, lemon, strawberry and raspberry.

Frank Woodward, owner of the Genesee Pure Food Company bought in the formula, for $450. The company launched a massive advertising campaign and by 1902, Jell-O’s annuals sales reached $250,000.

Two years later he introduced the Jell-O Girl and sent horse drawn wagons to rural communities to promote the new product.

The Jell-O so dominated the Genesee Pure Food Company that the firm’s name was change to the Jell-O Company in 1923. Two years later, it was acquired by the Postum Cereal Company (later renamed General Foods Corporation). Postum reduced Jell-O’s price and scored record sales but not record profits. General Foods was merged with Kraft Foods in 1989.
Jelly-O Company

General Foods Corporation

The Postum Company, maker of Post cereals was launched in 1895 by Charles W. Post. The company was created to market Postum, a coffee substitute made out of wheat bran and molasses.

He called his health drink Postum. In 1897 Post marketed a breakfast cereal called Grape-Nuts, and in 1904 these was followed with corn based cereal Post Toasties.

During the 1920s, Postum went on buying spree, acquiring such companies as Baker’s chocolate and Jell-O. Maxwell House was added in 1928.

Company management concluded that because the Postum was closely associated with cereal, the company need another name to encompass these new subsidiary. Thus, the General Foods Corporation was launched in 1929.

For most of the 20th century, the General Foods Company was recognizable national brand along with General Mills and General Electric.

General Foods Corporation was acquired by Phillip Morris Companies, the tobacco giant in 1985 for $5.6 billion. It was the largest non-oil acquisition in US history. In 1988 Philip Morris buys Kraft, Inc for $12.9 billion.

Four years later, General Foods was merged with Kraft, to create Kraft General Foods. In 1995, the name was shortened to Kraft Food Inc.

In 2000 Phillip Morris continued to expand with the acquisition of Nabisco, which became part of Kraft. 
General Foods Corporation