LEROYPENNYSAVER&NEWS -APRIL 3, 2016
TheSixtiethAnniversary
byLynneBelluscio
When I first came to the His-
toricalSociety, Jell-Owaspartof
General Foods. Thearchiveswas
based inWhitePlains,NewYork.
Then in1985,GeneralFoodswas
acquired by Philip Morris and
three years later, in December
1988, Philip Morris acquired
Kraft, Inc. In 1990, Kraft and
General Foods were combined
as Kraft General Foods. By this
time, thearchiveshadbeenmoved
toMortonGrove, nearChicago.
In 1995, “General Foods” was
dropped from the name (and
now can only be found on the
coffee-based beverage, General
Foods International Coffee.) In
2015, Kraft was acquired by
Heinz and it was announced that
therewere tobemany layoffsand
the headquartersweremoving to
downtown Chicago as a way to
save money. And it seems that
thearchives isonceagainmoving
– but I haven’t been able to find
outwhere.
The archivist that I knew is no
longerwith thecompany. Acou-
pleofweeksago, Iwascontacted
by Susan Ginter Watson, Man-
ager, Archives and Information
Services of Heinz. She emailed
to say that she was sending us a
1957notebookof things from the
60th Anniversary of Jell-O that
theywouldnotbemoving to their
new archive. I did tell her that if
shehadanythingelse fromJell-O
that they didn’t want, to contact
us, but I haven’t heard anything
andprobablywon’t.
The notebook arrived by UPS
and interestingly, tucked into
a front pocket is the note “File
Copy – Please return to Public
Relations LibraryGeneral Foods
Corp. White Plains NY.” There
is also a letter dated August 30,
1957 fromWilliamMacFarlane
explaining that the national pub-
licity on the 60th Anniversary
of Jell-O reached more than 5
millionreaders including
TheNew
YorkTimes
(557,224 readers), the
RochesterDemocrat andChron-
icle
( 297,660 readers), the
New
York Journal-American
(724,729
readers ) and the
NewYorkDaily
News
(2,156,137 readers).
Inside the notebook are 52
pagesofphotographs, newspaper
clippings, press releases and let-
ters. Many of the things are new
to us. There is a copy of a letter
fromGovernorAverellHarriman
toMr. Pridgeon,Manager of the
Jell-Oplant onNorthStreet, say-
ing that he would not be able to
attend the ceremonies. There is a
copyof theCongressionalRecord
of June 21, 1957– “Hon. Harold
Ostertag of New York in the
HouseofRepresentatives–Jell-O
Division of General Foods Corp
is observing this week the 60th
Anniversaryof thebirthof Jell-O
inLeRoy. Jell-Ohasbeenanasset
to LeRoy all down through the
years in its employment of those
desiring it and in its interest in
makingLeRoyagoodcommunity
in which to abide, rear children
and enjoy life.”
There were some other “Items
of Interest” from1957:
-More than1,000,000,packag-
es of Jell-O are produceddaily.
- Jell-Onow sells for 1½cents
less than it did60years ago.
-Thisplantnow turnsoutmore
Jell-O inoneyear than itdid in its
first 14years of operation.
- May Wait, who coined the
tradename“Jell-O,”died lastyear
in theTownof LeRoy.
The notes on production at the
LeRoyplant include:
- The plant has another func-
tion – It is a printing plant. It
supplies itself and other Jell-O
plants with product cartons in
the amount of millions a day - -
all turned out on three printing
presses.
- This plant consumes around
185,000 pounds of sugar in 15
½hours of full operation. This is
twice the amount of sugar used
daily by all of the families in
Rochester.
- The sugar is mixed with
other ingredients, suchasgelatin,
starch, colors, and flavors in a
battery of stainless steel mixers.
Eachmixer can hold enough for
10,000 individual servings.
-Themixingprocess takes little
more thanfiveminutesperbatch.
Each batch is then quality tested
before being released for the
packing bin over the packaging
machines.
-Several typesofmachinesare
used for packagefilling, the fast-
est being the Hoeller, which can
turnout 85packages perminute.
- The plant’s 450 employees
operate in two full shifts andone
clean-up shift.
- Other Jell-O plants were lo-
cated inSan,Leandro,California;
Hoboken, New Jersey; Chicago,
Illinois and Cobourg, Ontario,
Canada.
In 1964, seven years after the
60th Anniversary, Jell-Omoved
toDover, Delaware, never to set
foot inLeRoy again.
