When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Orator Francis Woodward (1856–1906) was a highly successful American businessman. While he made his initial fortune manufacturing these patent medicines (most notably Kemp's Balsam and Lane's Tea) in Le Roy, NY, he is most famously remembered for purchasing the rights to Jell-O in 1899 for $450. Through aggressive marketing, Woodward turned Jell-O into a massive success and a household name.
Orator F. Woodward died of a stroke in 1906 at the age of 49, right at the peak of his business's massive growth. His family continued running the Genesee Pure Food Company (later renamed the Jell-O Company). In 1925, the family sold the Jell-O business to the Postum Cereal Company (which later became General Foods) for $67 million—cementing Woodward's initial $450 purchase as one of the most profitable buyouts in American corporate history.
The $35 Despair: Early on, sales of Jell-O were so stagnant that a frustrated Woodward famously offered to sell the entire Jell-O business to his plant superintendent, Sam Nico, for just $35 to get it off his hands. Nico declined.
The Marketing Breakthrough: Woodward pivoted and rolled out an unprecedented advertising strategy. In 1904, his army of salesmen began distributing millions of free Jell-O cookbooks directly to homemakers across America.
The Result: The strategy worked flawlessly. By 1902, sales hit $250,000, and within a decade, Jell-O surpassed $1 million in annual sales, cementing it as "America's Most Famous Dessert."
