Jiffy Pop is a popcorn brand of ConAgra Foods. The product combines popcorn kernels, oil, and flavoring agents with a heavy-gauge aluminum foil pan. Jiffy Pop is one of the few popcorn brands that continues to sell popcorn in this form.
History
Frederick C. Mennen of LaPorte, Indiana, a chemist, inventor and industrialist, is credited with developing the product in 1958. Mennen began marketing Jiffy Pop in 1959. American Home Products purchased Jiffy Pop from Mennen that same year. There, Alvin Golub, a biochemist and pharmacologist, perfected the product and within one year it reached the national U.S. market. In 1976, the stage magicianHarry Blackstone Jr. was endorsing what the television-commercial jingle called "the magic treat — as much fun to make as it is to eat". Jiffy Pop was based on a similar product designed five years before by Benjamin Coleman of Berkley, Michigan, and marketed by the Taylor-Reed Corporation as E-Z Pop. In the early 1960s, Taylor-Reed sued Mennen Food Products for patent infringement. The district court ruled for the plaintiff, finding Jiffy Pop and E-Z Pop equivalent products, but the case was overturned on appeal. American Home Products spun off its food division, and renamed it International Home Foods, in 1996. In 2000, ConAgra purchased International Home Foods. Original Jiffy Pop packages used a plain, bright aluminum pan. This was eventually replaced by an aluminum pan with a black treatment on the outside to improve heat transfer. Also, although at one time a "Natural" flavor and a Jiffy Pop Microwave Popcorn version was manufactured, as of 2016 Jiffy Pop is offered in only one stovetop version, Butter Flavor Popcorn.
Advertising
Jiffy Pop has runtelevision commercials dating back at least to 1967. In one commercial, a genie appears and gives two children Jiffy Pop to eat. The slogan was repeated several times to highlight the fact that Jiffy Pop is "as much fun to make as it is to eat". It is mentioned in the American musical by both Veronica Sawyer and Martha Dunnstock at the beginning and end of the musical. The brand is briefly shown on the movie Scream; a character played by Drew Barrymore at the beginning of the film is heating the popcorn while she gets a phone call from Ghostface. On episode 16 of season 5 of the television showFamily Guy it is mentioned that Stewie taught Cleveland how to make Jiffy Pop and a clip of them is shown.
