Jell-O

**Jell-O** is a variety of gelatin desserts (fruit-flavored gels), puddings, and no-bake cream pies. The original Jell-O gelatin dessert (genericized as **jello**) is the signature of the brand. Jell-O is a registered trademark of Kraft Heinz and is based in Chicago, Illinois.

The original gelatin dessert began in Le Roy, New York, in 1897 after Pearle Bixby Wait and wife May trademarked the name for a product made from strawberry, raspberry, orange, or lemon flavoring added to sugar and granulated gelatin, which had just been patented in 1845 in its powdered form for the masses. The dessert was especially popular in the 1930s and 1950s.

## Description

Jell-O is sold prepared (ready-to-eat), or in powder form, and is available in various colors and flavors. The powder contains powdered gelatin and flavorings, including sugar or artificial sweeteners. It is dissolved in hot water, then chilled and allowed to set. Fruit, vegetables, and whipped cream can be added to make elaborate snacks that can be molded into shapes. Jell-O is typically put in a refrigerator to set (become firm), after which it is eaten.

Some non-gelatin pudding and pie-filling products are sold under the Jell-O brand. Ordinary pudding is cooked on the stove top (with milk) then eaten warm or chilled until firmly set, whereas instant pudding is mixed with cold milk and chilled. To make pie fillings, the same products are prepared with less liquid.

## History

### Early history

Gelatin, a protein produced from collagen extracted from boiled bones, connective tissues, and other animal products, has been a component of food, particularly desserts, since the 15th century.
Gelatin was popularized in New York in the Victorian era with spectacular and complex jelly moulds. Gelatin was sold in sheets and had to be purified, which was time-consuming. Gelatin desserts were the province of royalty and the relatively well-to-do. In 1845, a patent for powdered gelatin was obtained by industrialist Peter Cooper, who built the first American steam-powered locomotive, the *Tom Thumb*. This powdered gelatin was easy to manufacture and easier to use in cooking.

In 1897, in LeRoy, New York, carpenter and cough syrup manufacturer **Pearle Bixby Wait** trademarked a gelatin dessert called Jell-O. His wife May and he added strawberry, raspberry, orange, and lemon flavoring to granulated gelatin and sugar. In 1899, Jell-O was sold to **Orator Francis Woodward** (1856–1906), whose Genesee Pure Food Company produced the successful Grain-O health drink. Part of the legal agreement between Woodward and Wait dealt with the similar Jell-O name.

### Going mainstream

Various elements were key to Jell-O becoming a mainstream product: new technologies, such as refrigeration, powdered gelatin and machine packaging, home economics classes, and the company's marketing.

Initially Woodward struggled to sell the powdered product. Beginning in 1902, to raise awareness, Woodward's Genesee Pure Food Company placed advertisements in the *Ladies' Home Journal* proclaiming Jell-O to be "America's Most Famous Dessert." Jell-O was a minor success until 1904, when Genesee Pure Food Company sent armies of salesmen into the field to distribute free Jell-O cookbooks, a pioneering marketing tactic. Within a decade, three new flavors, chocolate (discontinued in 1927), cherry, and peach, were added, and the brand was launched in Canada. Celebrity testimonials and recipes appeared in advertisements featuring actress Ethel Barrymore and opera singer Ernestine Schumann-Heink. Some Jell-O illustrated advertisements were painted by Maxfield Parrish.

In 1923, the newly rechristened Jell-O Company launched D-Zerta, an artificially sweetened version of Jell-O. Two years later, Postum and Genesee merged, and in 1927 Postum acquired Clarence Birdseye's frozen foods company to form the General Foods Corporation.

By 1930, there appeared a vogue in American cuisine for congealed salads, and the company introduced lime-flavored Jell-O to complement the add-ins that cooks across the country were combining in these aspics and salads. Popular Jell-O recipes often included ingredients like cabbage, celery, green peppers, and even cooked pasta.

In 1934, sponsorship from Jell-O made comedian Jack Benny the dessert's spokesperson. At this time Post introduced a jingle ("featured" by the agency Young & Rubicam) that was familiar over several decades, in which the spelling "J-E-L-L-O" was (or could be) sung over a rising five-note musical theme. The jingle was written by Don Bestor, who was the bandleader for Jack Benny on his radio program.

In 1936, chocolate returned to the Jell-O lineup, as an instant pudding made with milk. It proved enormously popular, and over time other pudding flavors were added such as vanilla, tapioca, coconut, pistachio, butterscotch, egg custard, flan, and rice pudding.

By the 1950s, salads became so popular that Jell-O responded with savory and vegetable flavors such as celery, Italian, mixed vegetable, and seasoned tomato. These flavors have since been discontinued.

### Baby boom

Though much of the elaborate and dainty tea time fare served between the 1920s and 1950s was luxurious and decorative, using fancy ingredients like caviar or lobster, Jell-O became an affordable ornamental ingredient that women were able to use to create feminine, light, delicate dishes that were the standard of refined tea time fare during that period. By the Jazz Age nearly 1/3 of salad recipes in an average cookbook were gelatin-based recipes including varied fillings of fruit, vegetables or even cream cheese.

Typical recipes from the early 20th century included exotic fruits like figs, dates and bananas, or lemon flavored jello paired with maraschino cherries and other ingredients like marshmallows and almonds. One sweet gelatin-based fruit dessert called only "Good Salad" includes vanilla pudding, tapioca pudding, pineapple, mandarin oranges and orange gelatin. The pudding mixes are made with the reserved juice from the canned fruit and the flavored gelatin, the fruits are added and the dessert salad is allowed to set in the fridge and served cool.

One savory recipe collected by the *Des Moines Register*, published in Iowa, is for a tomato soup gelatin salad. The salad, served chilled, is made from lemon gelatin, tomato soup, cream cheese, stuffed olives combined with various other ingredients and seasonings.

The baby boom saw a significant increase in sales for Jell-O. Young mothers didn't have the supporting community structures of earlier generations, so marketers were quick to promote easy-to-prepare prepackaged foods. By this time, creating a Jell-O dessert required simply boiling water, combining the water with Jell-O, and putting the mixture into Tupperware molds and refrigerating it for a short time.

New flavors were continually added and unsuccessful flavors were removed: in the 1950s and 1960s, apple, black cherry, black raspberry, grape, lemon-lime, mixed fruit, orange-banana, pineapple-grapefruit, blackberry, strawberry-banana, tropical fruit, and more intense "wild" versions of the venerable strawberry, raspberry, and cherry. In 1966, the Jell-O "No-Bake" dessert line was launched, which allowed a cheesecake to be made in 15 minutes. In 1969, Jell-O 1∗2∗3 (later Jell-O 1•2•3), a gelatin dessert that separated into three layers as it cooled, was unveiled. Until 1987, Jell-O 1•2•3 was readily found in grocery stores throughout most of the United States, but the dessert is now rare. In 1971 packaged prepared pudding called Jell-O Pudding Treats were introduced. Jell-O Whip 'n Chill, a mousse-style dessert, was introduced and widely promoted; it remains available in limited areas today. A similar dessert called Jell-O Soft Swirl was introduced in 1972, flavors included Chocolate Creme, Strawberry Creme, Vanilla Creme, and Peach Creme. Florence Henderson appeared in TV ads for this product.

### Sales decline and turnaround

In 1964, the slogan "There's always room for Jell-O" was introduced, promoting the product as a "light dessert" that could easily be consumed even after a heavy meal.

Throughout the 1960s through the 1980s, Jell-O's sales steadily decreased. Many Jell-O dishes, such as desserts and Jell-O salads, became special occasion foods rather than everyday items. Marketers blamed this decline on decreasing family sizes, a "fast-paced" lifestyle and women's increasing employment. By 1986, a market study concluded that mothers with young children rarely purchased Jell-O.

To turn things around, Jell-O hired Dana Gioia to stop the decline. The marketing team revisited the Jell-O recipes published in past cookbooks and rediscovered Jigglers, although the original recipe did not use that name. Jigglers are Jell-O snacks molded into fun shapes and eaten as finger food. Jell-O launched a massive marketing campaign, notably featuring Bill Cosby as spokesman. The campaign was a huge success, causing a significant market gain.

Cosby became the company's pudding spokesperson in 1974, and continued as the voice of Jell-O for almost thirty years. Over his tenure as the mouthpiece for the company, he helped introduce new products such as frozen Jell-O Pops (in gelatin and pudding varieties); the new Sugar-Free Jell-O, which replaced D-Zerta in 1984 and was sweetened with NutraSweet; Jell-O Jigglers concentrated gummi snacks; and Sparkling Jell-O, a carbonated version of the dessert touted as the "Champagne of Jell-O." In 2010, Cosby returned as Jell-O spokesperson in an on-line web series called *OBKB*.

In the 1980s, a Jell-O advertising campaign slogan reminded consumers, "Don't forget—you have to remember to make it."

In 1990, General Foods was merged into Kraft Foods by parent company Philip Morris (now the Altria Group). New flavors were introduced: watermelon, blueberry, cranberry, margarita, and piña colada, among others. In 2001, the state Senate of Utah recognized Jell-O as a favorite snack food of Utah, recognizing the fundamental basis of Jell-O in Mormon cuisine such as Jell-O salad, and Governor Michael O. Leavitt declared an annual "Jell-O Week." During the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, the souvenir pins included one depicting green Jell-O.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Jell-O's family-friendly reputation was slightly tarnished by Jell-O shots and Jell-O wrestling.

As of 2011, there were over 420 million boxes of Jell-O gelatin and over 1 billion Jell-O cups sold in the United States each year. As of 2016, there were more than 110 products sold under the Jell-O brand name.

Jell-O is used as a substantial ingredient in a well-known dessert, a "Jell-O mold" the preparation of which requires a mold designed to hold gelatin, and the depositing of small quantities of chopped fruit, nuts, and other ingredients before it hardens to its typical form. Fresh pineapple, papaya, kiwifruit, and ginger root cannot be used because they contain enzymes that prevent gelatin from "setting". In the case of pineapple juice and the enzyme bromelain that it contains though, the enzyme can be inactivated without denaturing through excessive heating and thus altering the flavor by the addition of a small measured amount of capsaicin sourced from hot chilies.