Gelatin was prepared long before Jell-O was introduced in 1897. The quivering gelatin was originally patented in 1845 as a packaged dessert with instructions by American inventor, philanthropist, and industrialist Peter Copper. It was Pearle Bixby Wait of Le Roy in 1897, however, who jazzed up the gelatin with color and flavor to create a stand-alone dessert mix.
Wait was a carpenter and cough medicine manufacturer who was always looking for ways to supplement his income.
In 1899, Jell-O went into production, and the first four flavors - strawberry, raspberry, orange and lemon – rolled off the line.
Over the next sixty-five years Jell-O and Le Roy became synonymous as the kitchen- table recipe conquered the world.
In 1899, the Jell-O Company was bought by Orator Woodward of Genesee Pure Food for $450, whose pioneering marketing, advertising, and name recognition campaigns are still studied and copied today.
Two years later Woodward introduced Jell-O Girl and sent horse-drawn wagons to rural communities to promote the new product.
In 1902, the company produced the first of a subsequent flood of Jell-O recipe booklet. Woodward died in 1906, and within a year Jell-O was grossing $1 million a year.
By 1923, sales so dominated the Genesee Pure Food Company that the firm’s name changed to the Jell-O Company. In 1925 the company was sold to a Postum for an exchange of stock valued at $84 million.
History of Jell-O
