Products come and products go, and only a few last forever.
Remember Appleasy, introduced by Pillsbury a few years ago as the ultimate in convenient apple desserts? It bombed. Even more forgettable was Green Giant's vegetable yogurt - in such flavors as cucumber, beet, tomato and garden salad.With the failure rate of new food products running at somewhere around 60 percent - even 80 percent if you count those that don't make it out of the test kitchen - and in keeping with the historical overtones of the day, it might be fun to take a look at some of the products that have found their niche and lingered on. Here are stories behind a few American favorites that have achieved major milestones.
LOOKING FOR AN `UPSCALE' DESIGN>
It was 1919. World War I had ended, Prohibition was about to begin and Congress was ready to pass the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote. On May 10, the Continental Baking Co. introduced a revolutionary new idea - individual cupcakes, coming two to a package and selling for a nickel. Housewives were a little skeptical that these new treats would be as good as their own cooking. But the Hostess cupcakes, now celebrating their 70th year, were an idea whose time had come. (Twinkies, also a popular snack idea, came along 11 years later.) Some 400 million Hostess cupcakes were sold and eaten last year.
No one is quite sure who invented the cupcake idea, one but D.R. "Doc" Rice was the one who gave them the creme filling and the famous icing squiggle - as a move to upgrade the product following World War II. Wartime rationing had restricted the amount and quality of sugar and chocolate, so the company felt it needed a new "upscale" design to differentiate the new cupcakes from the wartime version. Thus the squiggles - seven loops to a cake - were added as a finishing touch.
The first cupcakes were iced by hand, in chocolate or vanilla. Malted-milk flavored icing was available for a short time in the 1940s. Orange cakes with orange icing were also introduced at that time.
Howdy Doody and Annie Oakley touted the cupcakes on TV in the 1950s. Actress Ann Blythe became the spokesperson in the 1960s. Then there was "Captain Cupcake" who took over promotion on Saturday morning TV in the 1970s.
THE FIRST MEAL FOR TV-WATCHERS
Swanson Dinners, the original TV dinners, are 35 years old this year. The idea was to capitalize on the popularity of the revolutionary entertainment of the '50s. The first dinner was sold in a carton that looked like a television screen, with the meal as the star of the show.
There have been a few changes over the years. In the 1960s, the words "TV Dinner" were phased out. In 1986, the compartmentalized aluminum tray was retired in favor of a microwavable tray - in fact, the last aluminum tray produced was donated to the Smithsonian Institution. More than half the dinners now sold are microwaved, says Campbell, the parent company.
Through the years, the most popular dinners have always been turkey, Salisbury steak and fried chicken. In 1986, the brownie, introduced with the original fried chicken dinner, was dropped. But so many consumers let out a squawk that it was brought back in 1987.
The first production order for Swanson Dinners was 5,000 - and company officials were not at all sure they could sell that many. In 1988, more than 114 million dinners were consumed. And if all the dinners sold in the last 10 years were placed end to end, they would extend to the moon.
ANIMAL CRACKERS FOR THE TREE
For many children, their first "toy," was a box of Barnum's Animals - animal crackers produced by Nabisco. The crackers came packaged in a replica of a P.T. Barnum circus wagon, complete with a string handle. On the box were ferocious animals; inside were yummy cookies.
Animal Crackers have been around since 1902, first introduced as a novelty item to be hung on the Christmas tree. The package cost a nickel.
Since then, 35 billion animal crackers have been produced - still using the same basic recipe and still in the same little box - enough to circle the earth more than 38 times if they were laid end to end.
Animal crackers are sold in 17 countries and territories around the world. There have been 37 animals over the year. Today, 18 shapes are used: tiger, cougar, camel, rhinoceros, kangaroo, zebra, sheep, bear (standing and sitting), hippopotamus, bison, lion, hyena, monkey, gorilla, seal, giraffe and elephant.
The little cookies have become a part of popular culture. In 1917, philosopher Christopher Morley wrote a poem entitled "Animal Crackers." In 1926, "I'm Just Wild About Animal Crackers" was a popular song. The 1925 movie, "Curly Top," featured Shirley Temple singing "Animal Crackers In My Soup." Animal Crackers is even listed in the dictionary.
FLOUR AND A FAVORITE HOMEMAKER
At the Millers International Exhibition in 1880 the Washburn Crosby Co. won the gold medal award for its "superlative flour," and the Gold Medal Flour trademark was born.
One of the longest-running advertising slogans in history was launched by the company in 1907: "Eventually - Why Not Now?" Some milling officials thought it was a waste of good money to advertise flour, but the slogan lasted well into the 1950s, appearing on printed advertisements, billboards, company trucks, train cars and flour bags.
It was Gold Medal that introduced us to Betty Crocker in 1921. A flour advertisement had carried a picture-puzzle contest that turned out to be so easy that 30,000 people responded with correct solutions, and with an avalanche of mail requesting recipes and baking advice. Company officials (by then it had become General Mills) decided the responses should be signed with a woman's name - and Betty Crocker was born. During World War II years, Betty was voted one of America's "best known women," second only to Eleanor Roosevelt.
A CHIP OFF THE OLD RESORT MENU
The potato chip is as American as . . . well, the American Indian. In fact, it is an Indian who is credited with inventing the chip - even if it was by accident.
An Adirondack chief named George Crum was working as a chef at Moon Lake House, a resort in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., in 1853 and became angered when a customer who had just returned from Paris demanded "properly thin" French fried potatoes. Crum sliced the potato paper thin, cooked the slices in boiling oil, added a dash of salt and served up the first potato chips. The customer was pleased, and the chips became a popular treat at the resort. So popular they soon were imitated throughout the country.
The potato chip industry had humble beginnings. Most of the largest chip companies started in the kitchen, where small batches of chips were hand-produced and sold to neighborhood retailers. Today, it has become mechanized and automated - and uses uses a 4-billion-pound mountain of potatoes each year (it takes approximately 4 pounds of potatoes to produce 1 pound of chips). The American love affair with the potato chip has reached the point where the average person devours nearly 5 pounds a year.
THE JIGGLES ALMOST DIDN'T MAKE IT
Jell-O may be one of the best-selling prepared desserts today, but it didn't start out that way. The story begins nearly a century and a half ago. Peter Cooper, inventor of the Tom Thumb railroad, obtained the first patent for a gelatin dessert in 1845 but did nothing with it for 50 years.
In 1897, a cough medicine manufacturer named Pearl Wait was looking around for something new to try and started production on an adaption of Cooper's gelatin dessert. Wait's wife came up with the name Jell-O, but just where she got it is a mystery. (Some think that she may not have known gelatin started with a G.)
Jell-O didn't set any sales records, and two years later Wait sold the operation for $450 to a neighbor, Francis Woodward, who had just founded a company to produce a cereal beverage he called Grain-O.
Things were so bad for a time that Woodward offered to sell the whole Jell-O plant to his superintendent for a mere $35; the superintendent turned him down.
However, in 1902 Jell-O finally caught on, and sales soared to $25,000. Four years later sales had reached the million mark. Grain-O was dropped from the line, and Jell-O went on to become an American tradition.