The Rise And Fall Of Jell-O
Narrator: Jell-O has starred in some of the 1950s
most infamous recipes.
Sarah Wassberg Johnson: It was being served
at tea parties and card parties.
Narrator: It's beloved in
what's known as the "Jell-O belt"...
and continues to be slurped down
by college students
across the country.
But despite its
brand recognition
sales have been
slipping for decades,
dropping more than $371 million
between 2009 and 2018.
So, what happened?
Before the pre-packaged boxes and colorful jIggling cups
we've come to recognize as Jell-O,
gelatin was served in the Middle Ages.
Gelatin is made of
collagen and early recipes
involved melting and
filtering pigs' ears and feet.
It eventually became a status symbol
because you needed to have access to a lot of meat,
to have enough bones to boil.
You also needed a large staff to do it
and some were cool to store the gelatin
so it could set properly.
The jiggling dish was
served to European royalty
and it eventually made
its way across the Atlantic
to the United States.
Soon people were looking for an easier and faster way
to make gelatin, but early attempts
just didn't taste that great.
However one instant gelatin product,
would quickly become a staple in American households.
[Tape] J-E-L-L-O!
Narrator: Invented in the tiny town of Le Roy, New York
by struggling cough syrup maker, Pearle Wait
and his wife, May.
Jell-O combined gelatin
with sugary fruit syrups, which made it sweeter
than other instant gelatin products.
But the small town couple didn't know how to market Jell-O.
So in 1899 they sold the patent for $450,
the equivalent of almost $14,000 today
to orator Frank Woodward of the Genesee Pure Food Company.
Just three years later,
Jell-O sales rose to $250,000 or $7.4 million today.
Jell-O found its success in a series
of highly strategic and successful advertising campaigns.
It printed its own recipes showing and teaching consumers
all the different ways they could serve Jell-O in a meal,
which generated demand for the product.
The company commissioned cookbooks and advertisements
from American artist Norman Rockwell,
who created colorful drawings of Jell-O
in family friendly settings.
This helped to establish the company's wholesome reputation.
In 1923, the Genesee Pure Food Company
changed its name to the Jell-O Company.
Two years later, The Jell-O Company
became part of a larger food empire,
which would eventually become General Foods Corporation.
When the great depression hit,
recipe books promoted Jell-O as an affordable food option,
highlighting its ability to preserve foods and transform
just a few ingredients into a satisfying meal.
And during World War II,
Jell-O salads became a creative way
to put meals together with rationed goods.
Convenience also began to play
a bigger role in the meals people prepared.
Johnson: In World War II when you had many more women
mobilized in the workforce
and people were looking for something easy,
it was probably much easier to just make some Jell-O
and stick it in the fridge for the next day
than to try and bake a cake or make a pie
when fat was rationed.
Narrator: And in the post war era, elaborate Jell-O salads
became a popular choice for home events like dinner parties.
Johnson: These were sort of
public events in a private space.
So it was important that you impressed your guests.
Narrator: But the qualities that once made Jell-O a staple
in American homes started to backfire.
While Jell-O's low price point made it accessible
during hard times like the great depression,
it's cheapness also degraded
gelatin's once glamorous reputation,
not to mention Jell-O's association with wartime rations
made it less than appealing to consumers
who no longer had to stretch out ingredients.
So by the 50s, gelatin was seen as something
to stick leftovers in or serve to kids,
and by the 70s, Jell-O sales began to decline.
In response to its slipping sales,
Jell-O hired comedian and actor Bill Cosby
as a spokesperson in 1974.
The partnership is one of the longest celebrity endorsements
in American advertising history, lasting 29 years.
At the time, Cosby's endorsement helped boost sales
but Jell-O took a hit as it ramped up production
of its pre-packaged single serve cups.
It was seen as a snack food for children,
something served in a school cafeteria or in a hospital--
not a filling meal for a family.
Tobacco conglomerate Philip Morris
bought General Foods in 1985,
and in 1989 merged it with Kraft Inc.,
creating Kraft General Foods.
When the low fat diet trend emerged in the 80s and 90s,
Kraft tried to market Jell-O
as a diet food with fat-free flavors to keep up.
Anna Miller: So in the 80s there were all of these products
where manufacturers were trying to take away the fat
and then add a bunch of preservatives and other ingredients
and sugars to make the food still palatable without fat.
Narrator: But for Jell-O, doing this wasn't enough
to turn things around.
Instead, it now had the added reputation
of being a diet food which only increased
in the early 2000s as Jell-O pivoted to promoting
it's sugar free products to take advantage
of the Atkins diet craze.
When that didn't help bounce sales back,
Jell-O attempted to play up its family friendly reputation
and although consumers had embraced Jell-O
during the great depression as a way to cut costs,
the great recession didn't seem to have the same effect.
From 2009 to 2014, Jell-O sales declined by double digits,
falling from $932.5 million to 692 million.
Miller: So Jell-O is basically the opposite
of what consumers are looking for right now.
It looks artificial, its ingredients are unrecognizable,
it has a bunch of added sugar and even though it's fat-free,
we all know now that that is not necessarily healthier.
Narrator:So is this the end?
Miller: If Jell-O wanted to make a comeback,
I think it's pretty impossible
if their aim is to appeal to those
looking for more natural foods.
It would have to basically
turn into something other than Jell-O.
Narrator: But despite its falling sales numbers,
Jell-O remains popular in places like Salt Lake City
and the surrounding area,
otherwise known as the Jell-O belt.
The area has a large Mormon population,
and Jell-O's wholesome family branding
aligns with Mormon values.
Jell-O even became the official snack food of Utah in 2001
and the trading pin for the 2002 Salt Lake City
Winter Olympics was a bowl of green Jell-O.
And Kraft foods still believes in the brand.
Kraft sent Business Insider this statement saying,
The company also encourages people
to get creative with Jell-O recipes on social media,
which feels like a return to Jell-O's origins
when the company would print recipes
to teach confused housewives
what to do with the strange new product.
It's also trying to connect with new generations
by selling edible Jell-O slime for kids.
So while Jell-O may no longer be the star of as many meals
as it used to be, it's still alive and jiggling.
