And the man behind the brands is...
Jacob Schweppe
All his life it seemed like Jacob Schweppe had people deciding his career path for him. Now, stranded in England as his homeland dissolved in revolution, Schweppe would make the call himself.
In 1752, at the age of 12, his parents considered him too delicate for work on the family farm in Witzenhausen, Germany and allowed a travelling tinker to care for him. Schweppe showed such a proclivity for mending pots with his skilled hands that the tinker returned him to his parents with advice to send him to a silversmith. The same thing happened. The silversmith convinced his parents to turn him over to a jeweler. So Jacob Schweppe went to Geneva and became a jeweler.
An amateur scientist, Schweppe devoured all the news he could find on the experiments of Joseph Priestly who was working with gas and water. Schweppe's own efforts with carbonated water were not satisfactory to him so he offered his artificial mineral waters to doctors to give to poor patients.
Finally he perfected his carbonation system with a compression pump and demand for his mineral water spread. Schweppe continued giving away his water to rich and poor. He was, after all, a researcher.
Many people insisted that he take money for his water so he started charging a nominal fee in 1780. So Schweppe quit the jewelry business and became the first manufacturer of artificial mineral waters. The soft drink industry was born.
After ten years the little business was firmly established when a friend and sales employee wanted to also make mineral water and sell it along with Schweppe's. He had only seen the machine in operation so he described the apparatus for well-known engineer Nicolas Paul to build him one. Paul did so but built a better machine for himself to compete with Schweppe. Rather than engage the fight Schweppe became partners in 1790 in the firm of Schweppe, Paul & Gosse.
The range of mineral waters expanded and the partners decided to start a factory in London. His partners, both younger than himself, convinced the 52-year old Schweppe to leave his family and launch the product in London.
Schweppe met little success. He was forced by economics to set up in a particularly nasty quarter of London. In 1792 there were many inferior mineral waters on the market and Schweppes was no novelty. He was selling virtually nothing, not even to doctors who usually preferred his product.
Schweppe wanted to come home. Besides the desultory business climate revolutionary fervor was sweeping through Europe. His partners persuaded Schweppe to stay in England and at considerable personal expense he sent for his daughter Collette, the only survivor among his nine children.
Suddenly a letter arrived from the partners calling him back. The partners were bickering, sales were dropping. Schweppe had had enough. He dissolved the partnership, surrendering the business he had built for ten years in Geneva. Now, in 1793 Schweppe was free to run his artificial mineral water business as he wished.
He introduced an egg-shaped bottle to hold his aerated waters that remained in use for over 100 years. Its shape insured the bottle would be kept on its side so the cork would stay saturated, sealing in the precious gas. Each cork was tarred and held in place with a string.
Schweppe gained the endorsement of Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles. He began referring to his product as "soda water" and recommended it for complaints of kidneys, bladders and indigestion. Schweppe's Seltzer was touted for its pleasant taste and as a mixer with liquor. It also helped fever and hangovers.
By 1798 Schweppe was clearing the handsome sum of 1200 pounds a year. His English fame had eclipsed his Geneva business, which collapsed among the bickering remaining partners shortly after the dissolution. He sold 3/4 of his company to three men from the island of Jersey for $2250 pounds, retaining 1/8 for himself and 1/8 for his daughter.
Schweppe retired the next year in 1799. Napoleon had annexed Geneva making Schweppe a French citizen. He travelled, dabbled in agriculture and tended bees until his death in 1821 at the age of 81. His daughter sold the last of the family's share of Schweppes in 1824.
Showing posts with label Soft Drink Brands. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Soft Drink Brands. Show all posts
February 6, 2007
Perrier
And the man behind the brand is...
Louis Perrier
Dr. Louis Perrier was a French physician and entrepreneur. That his name should be recognizable across America is a fluke of commercial and social history. In 1903, Perrier and English aristocrat St. John Harnsworth joined forces to purchase the historic natural spring in Vergeze, France. Emperor Napoleon III stated in 1863 that the spring waters of Vergeze should be bottled “for the good of France.”
This the partners did, selling the sparkling waters in green 23-ounce bottles. Perrier advertised his drink as “the champagne of bottled waters” and sold it for nearly $1.00 a bottle. Accordingly Perrier was available only in gourmet and specialty-food shops for decades and decades.
Then fitness and health consciousness hit America in the late 1970s. From 1980 until 1989 the bottled water industry grew from an $80 million business to one accounting for almost three billion dollars in sales. Perrier spent the most money the earliest in the boom and became so popular many people assumed Perrier invented bottled water. Suddenly everyone knew Louis Perrier’s name, a doctor from France.
Louis Perrier
Dr. Louis Perrier was a French physician and entrepreneur. That his name should be recognizable across America is a fluke of commercial and social history. In 1903, Perrier and English aristocrat St. John Harnsworth joined forces to purchase the historic natural spring in Vergeze, France. Emperor Napoleon III stated in 1863 that the spring waters of Vergeze should be bottled “for the good of France.”
This the partners did, selling the sparkling waters in green 23-ounce bottles. Perrier advertised his drink as “the champagne of bottled waters” and sold it for nearly $1.00 a bottle. Accordingly Perrier was available only in gourmet and specialty-food shops for decades and decades.
Then fitness and health consciousness hit America in the late 1970s. From 1980 until 1989 the bottled water industry grew from an $80 million business to one accounting for almost three billion dollars in sales. Perrier spent the most money the earliest in the boom and became so popular many people assumed Perrier invented bottled water. Suddenly everyone knew Louis Perrier’s name, a doctor from France.
Hires
And the man behind the brand is...
Charles Hires
For Charles Hires a trifling matter like a honeymoon was no reason to stop his obsessive experimenting with root beer recipes. He spent the first days of his married life tinkering with an assortment of roots, herbs and berries, including juniper, spikenard, wintergreen, sasparilla, hops, vanilla beans, ginger, licorice, deer tongue, dog grass and birch bark.
Root beer traces its origins back to colonial times. For those who didn’t want to dig their own roots a few pharmacies began to market packets of roots in the early 1800s for brew-it-yourself beverages. Hires, a descendant of Martha Washington, became interested in root beer as a 16-year old pharmacy student at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1866.
Two medical professors assisted him in developing a formula for a beverage he sold at the soda fountain of a drug store where he clerked. He dreamed of his own soft drink business but there didn’t seem much chance of that happening anytime soon.
One day Hires was walking down Spruce Street in Philadelphia and watched an excavating crew digging out a cellar. Thinking fast he told the contractor he could dispose of the troublesome soil in the basement of his drug store a few blocks away. Hires had recognized the soil being carted from the worksite as potter’s clay, valuable in removing grease stains from clothing.
He rolled out the soil, sliced it into cakes and wrapped it in tissue paper. Hires’ Potter’s Clay was soon for sale in stores throughout Philadelphia. Hires netted almost $7000 from this venture which he plowed into manufacturing his soft drinks.
He hit upon an especially tasty combination of 16 roots and berries and set out to market his “root tea” - so named in deference to Pennsylvania’s growing temperance movement. Friends scoffed at this plan, praising the drink but despairing the name. They convinced Charles Hires that “root beer” would project a more robust image.
The first Hires Root Beer came in packets and sold for 25¢. The packet was designed to be mixed in five gallons of water. Hires rented a booth at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. Response to his refreshing samples was so strong he started offering his powders by mail, using the beverage industry’s first advertising. “A delicious, sparkling and wholesome beverage,” he raved in Harper’s.
Hires knew the future of soda pop did not lie with home brewing and in 1893 he pioneered the bottling of soft drinks. Before the end of the century over three million bottles of Hires Root Beer were spewing from plants across the United States, Canada and Cuba. Hires ads proclaimed that the tasty beverage “gives children the strength to resist the enervating effects of the heat, bridges the convalescent over the trying part of a hot day and helps even a cynic see the brighter side of life.”
In 1898 Hires began the manufacture of condensed milk and built a chain of twenty-one factories scattered throughout the country. He sold the milk business to Nestle in 1917 and retreated from active participation in the day-to-day affairs of the root beer operation. Hires’ chief hobby in the latter part of his life was deep sea fishing. In 1937, as he packed to go on an extended fishing trip, Charles Hires was felled by a stroke and died at the age of 86.
Charles Hires
For Charles Hires a trifling matter like a honeymoon was no reason to stop his obsessive experimenting with root beer recipes. He spent the first days of his married life tinkering with an assortment of roots, herbs and berries, including juniper, spikenard, wintergreen, sasparilla, hops, vanilla beans, ginger, licorice, deer tongue, dog grass and birch bark.
Root beer traces its origins back to colonial times. For those who didn’t want to dig their own roots a few pharmacies began to market packets of roots in the early 1800s for brew-it-yourself beverages. Hires, a descendant of Martha Washington, became interested in root beer as a 16-year old pharmacy student at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1866.
Two medical professors assisted him in developing a formula for a beverage he sold at the soda fountain of a drug store where he clerked. He dreamed of his own soft drink business but there didn’t seem much chance of that happening anytime soon.
One day Hires was walking down Spruce Street in Philadelphia and watched an excavating crew digging out a cellar. Thinking fast he told the contractor he could dispose of the troublesome soil in the basement of his drug store a few blocks away. Hires had recognized the soil being carted from the worksite as potter’s clay, valuable in removing grease stains from clothing.
He rolled out the soil, sliced it into cakes and wrapped it in tissue paper. Hires’ Potter’s Clay was soon for sale in stores throughout Philadelphia. Hires netted almost $7000 from this venture which he plowed into manufacturing his soft drinks.
He hit upon an especially tasty combination of 16 roots and berries and set out to market his “root tea” - so named in deference to Pennsylvania’s growing temperance movement. Friends scoffed at this plan, praising the drink but despairing the name. They convinced Charles Hires that “root beer” would project a more robust image.
The first Hires Root Beer came in packets and sold for 25¢. The packet was designed to be mixed in five gallons of water. Hires rented a booth at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1876. Response to his refreshing samples was so strong he started offering his powders by mail, using the beverage industry’s first advertising. “A delicious, sparkling and wholesome beverage,” he raved in Harper’s.
Hires knew the future of soda pop did not lie with home brewing and in 1893 he pioneered the bottling of soft drinks. Before the end of the century over three million bottles of Hires Root Beer were spewing from plants across the United States, Canada and Cuba. Hires ads proclaimed that the tasty beverage “gives children the strength to resist the enervating effects of the heat, bridges the convalescent over the trying part of a hot day and helps even a cynic see the brighter side of life.”
In 1898 Hires began the manufacture of condensed milk and built a chain of twenty-one factories scattered throughout the country. He sold the milk business to Nestle in 1917 and retreated from active participation in the day-to-day affairs of the root beer operation. Hires’ chief hobby in the latter part of his life was deep sea fishing. In 1937, as he packed to go on an extended fishing trip, Charles Hires was felled by a stroke and died at the age of 86.
Welch's
And the man behind the brand is...
Charles Welch
As a minister with deep theological beliefs and an ardent prohibitionist it always seemed to Dr. Thomas Welch that the use of wine as a sacrament was a heretical contradiction. One Sunday in 1869 a visiting minister to the Welch family home in Vineland, New Jersey was "led astray" by the communion wine. Welch vowed to develop a non-alcoholic fruit juice that could be used as a communion wine.
Welch began cooking grapes and straining them through cloth bags. He quickly immersed the remaining liquid into boiling water. It worked. Dr. Welch's Unfermented Wine would surely end the great contradiction of the ecumenical world. Proudly Welch began taking his non-alcoholic wine to local pastors. But he found that churchmen demanded only wine. By 1873, after four years of increasing futility, he abandoned plans to sell his grape juice.
Welch had an earnest desire to solve an important problem for his church and he did. And no one cared. A graduate of Syracuse Medical College, he returned full-time to the practice of dentistry. In his 800-word Autobiography Thomas Welch never even mentioned the achievement.
In 1872 his 20-year old son Charles left home to begin a dental career in Washington DC but grape juice flowed through his veins. In 1875 he returned to Vineland to revitalize the idea of commercial grape juice. His disillusioned father favored dentistry over juice so young Charles compromised and split his time with his dental practice in Washington and his fledgling grape juice business in Vineland.
In 1881 Thomas and Charles operated Welch's Dental Supply Company in Philadelphia while Charles sold an occasional gallon of grape juice. After returning to Vineland in 1886 the balance of Charles' activities began to tilt towards his fruit juice over dentistry. A new brick factory was constructed.
It was not an age of advertising and bold newspaper ads were a novelty. But Charles Welch had no choice; he had to educate the public about the uses for his new grape juice. FOR THE SACRAMENT AND FOR MEDICINAL USE Welch's headlines screamed.
Finally in 1893, 24 years after the first grape juice dripped through his father's cotton cloths, Charles Welch left dentistry and plunged into the grape juice business full time. He travelled to Chicago and gave away samples of "Welch's Grape Juice" from his booth at the Columbian Exposition.
His success at the Exposition convinced Welch to seek areas that attracted crowds. The Welch's stand became a staple of the Atlantic City boardwalk, America’s premier seaside resort at the time. He exhibited at medical and drug conventions. The Welch Palace dispensing pavilion at the San Francisco Exposition in 1912 was a big hit.
Welch was tireless in his promotion of his new drink. Like many beverages of the day Welch touted the medicinal benefits of his grape juice. "Juice makes rich red blood," claimed his ads. Welch always retained the family prohibitionist zeal for the non-alcoholic wine and he found several converts.
William Jennings Bryan, four-time loser for the Presidency and long-time teetotaler, served as Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson. He disliked the tradition of serving alcohol to his guests and used Welch's juice instead. It became known as Grape Juice Diplomacy. At the same time Secretary of Navy Josephus Daniels banned alcohol on ships and cartoonists dubbed his charges the "Grape Juice Navy."
By this time Welch had relocated his business to the wine-growing regions of New York. Black Rot disease decimated the Vineland grape vines in 1895 forcing the migration to Westfield, New York. His first year in Westfield Welch pressed 288 tons of Concord grapes to bottle 50,000 gallons of juice. In 1909 production reached one million gallons a year. Welch tried new products in 1912 and found success with jams and jellies. Others, like tomato juice and ketchup, failed.
Welch, still an ardent Prohibitionist, campaigned for governor of New York on the Dry Ticket in 1916. He died in 1926, in the midst of Prohibition, still in full authority of the company he founded on his father's non-alcoholic beverage.
Charles Welch
As a minister with deep theological beliefs and an ardent prohibitionist it always seemed to Dr. Thomas Welch that the use of wine as a sacrament was a heretical contradiction. One Sunday in 1869 a visiting minister to the Welch family home in Vineland, New Jersey was "led astray" by the communion wine. Welch vowed to develop a non-alcoholic fruit juice that could be used as a communion wine.
Welch began cooking grapes and straining them through cloth bags. He quickly immersed the remaining liquid into boiling water. It worked. Dr. Welch's Unfermented Wine would surely end the great contradiction of the ecumenical world. Proudly Welch began taking his non-alcoholic wine to local pastors. But he found that churchmen demanded only wine. By 1873, after four years of increasing futility, he abandoned plans to sell his grape juice.
Welch had an earnest desire to solve an important problem for his church and he did. And no one cared. A graduate of Syracuse Medical College, he returned full-time to the practice of dentistry. In his 800-word Autobiography Thomas Welch never even mentioned the achievement.
In 1872 his 20-year old son Charles left home to begin a dental career in Washington DC but grape juice flowed through his veins. In 1875 he returned to Vineland to revitalize the idea of commercial grape juice. His disillusioned father favored dentistry over juice so young Charles compromised and split his time with his dental practice in Washington and his fledgling grape juice business in Vineland.
In 1881 Thomas and Charles operated Welch's Dental Supply Company in Philadelphia while Charles sold an occasional gallon of grape juice. After returning to Vineland in 1886 the balance of Charles' activities began to tilt towards his fruit juice over dentistry. A new brick factory was constructed.
It was not an age of advertising and bold newspaper ads were a novelty. But Charles Welch had no choice; he had to educate the public about the uses for his new grape juice. FOR THE SACRAMENT AND FOR MEDICINAL USE Welch's headlines screamed.
Finally in 1893, 24 years after the first grape juice dripped through his father's cotton cloths, Charles Welch left dentistry and plunged into the grape juice business full time. He travelled to Chicago and gave away samples of "Welch's Grape Juice" from his booth at the Columbian Exposition.
His success at the Exposition convinced Welch to seek areas that attracted crowds. The Welch's stand became a staple of the Atlantic City boardwalk, America’s premier seaside resort at the time. He exhibited at medical and drug conventions. The Welch Palace dispensing pavilion at the San Francisco Exposition in 1912 was a big hit.
Welch was tireless in his promotion of his new drink. Like many beverages of the day Welch touted the medicinal benefits of his grape juice. "Juice makes rich red blood," claimed his ads. Welch always retained the family prohibitionist zeal for the non-alcoholic wine and he found several converts.
William Jennings Bryan, four-time loser for the Presidency and long-time teetotaler, served as Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson. He disliked the tradition of serving alcohol to his guests and used Welch's juice instead. It became known as Grape Juice Diplomacy. At the same time Secretary of Navy Josephus Daniels banned alcohol on ships and cartoonists dubbed his charges the "Grape Juice Navy."
By this time Welch had relocated his business to the wine-growing regions of New York. Black Rot disease decimated the Vineland grape vines in 1895 forcing the migration to Westfield, New York. His first year in Westfield Welch pressed 288 tons of Concord grapes to bottle 50,000 gallons of juice. In 1909 production reached one million gallons a year. Welch tried new products in 1912 and found success with jams and jellies. Others, like tomato juice and ketchup, failed.
Welch, still an ardent Prohibitionist, campaigned for governor of New York on the Dry Ticket in 1916. He died in 1926, in the midst of Prohibition, still in full authority of the company he founded on his father's non-alcoholic beverage.
Tetley
And the men behind the brand are...
Joseph and Edward Tetley
The Tetley brothers, Joseph and Edward, scratched out a living in Yorkshire, England in 1837 selling salt from the back of a horsecart. To help scrape up a few extra pounds the Tetleys sold a little tea, then an expensive luxury item never found on the back of a horsecart. This did not make them rich.
They did however invest their small profits wisely in the new railroads which were beginning to spread across England. At the same time tea was becoming more popular and less expensive. Tea clippers raced each other from ports in the Far East to deliver their exotic cargos as fresh as possible. Some made the journey in as little as 100 days.
With the tea business perking up the Tetley brothers used profits from their railway investments to set up business in London in 1856 as Joseph Tetley and Company. Tetley blended teas from all over the world for their growing market. Their blend of orange pekoe and pekoe cut black tea remains England’s most popular and America’s second-best selling brand.
Through one of their partners the Tetleys began marketing tea in the United States in 1888., selling mostly through department stores. Tetley was one of the first to market its tea in individual bags in 1910.
Joseph and Edward Tetley
The Tetley brothers, Joseph and Edward, scratched out a living in Yorkshire, England in 1837 selling salt from the back of a horsecart. To help scrape up a few extra pounds the Tetleys sold a little tea, then an expensive luxury item never found on the back of a horsecart. This did not make them rich.
They did however invest their small profits wisely in the new railroads which were beginning to spread across England. At the same time tea was becoming more popular and less expensive. Tea clippers raced each other from ports in the Far East to deliver their exotic cargos as fresh as possible. Some made the journey in as little as 100 days.
With the tea business perking up the Tetley brothers used profits from their railway investments to set up business in London in 1856 as Joseph Tetley and Company. Tetley blended teas from all over the world for their growing market. Their blend of orange pekoe and pekoe cut black tea remains England’s most popular and America’s second-best selling brand.
Through one of their partners the Tetleys began marketing tea in the United States in 1888., selling mostly through department stores. Tetley was one of the first to market its tea in individual bags in 1910.
Lipton
And the man behind the brand is...
Thomas Lipton
Many of the fortunes made in the 19th century were by European immigrants who applied Old World skills in their adopted land of America. Thomas Lipton was different. He came to America, looked around for a while, and took what he learned in the New World back to Scotland to make one of the greatest fortunes of all.
Lipton began work at the age of 10 in 1860 to help his family. He toiled as a stationer’s apprentice, a hosier’s helper and a cabin boy before scraping together $18 for steerage to New York City in the spring of 1865. He arrived with a mere $8 in his pocket but struck a deal at dockside to round up a dozen lodgers in exchange for free room to himself.
The post-Civil War South needed labor to rebuild and Lipton headed there for the next 40 months. He showed up in the South Carolina rice fields, on the New Orleans streets as a carman, in Charleston fighting fires and keeping books on a plantation. He finally returned to New York as a grocery clerk where he became entranced by the American way of merchandising - attractive displays, salesman interested in customers, and especially flamboyant promotions.
At a time when ambitious young men were exploiting the unlimited potential of America Lipton took the $500 he had saved and returned to Scotland. He opened his first shop in Glasgow on May 10, 1871. He bought directly from farmers and crofters in cash, never borrowed and lived for his work. But so did many others. What set Lipton apart was his flair for advertising and showmanship - techniques he had learned in the United States.
Lipton hired one of Scotland’s leading cartoonists to produce a fresh poster for his shop window each week. He employed an Irishman in knee breeches, cutaway coat and a cocked hat to promote his Irish bacon by driving two scrubbed and polished pigs named “Lipton’s Orphans” through the Glasgow streets to his shop - always by a different route.
He erected a pair of mirrors on the walk in front of the shop. One was concave producing an elongated body with a haggard face. That was “Going to Lipton’s.” The other was convex which caused a paunchy look and an inevitable smile. That was “Coming from Lipton’s.” He provided entertainment for children to free mothers to shop.
In six months he set up another shop - the forerunner of the food chains of today. By 1880 Lipton operated 20 shops with the goal of a new one every week. Each opening was preceded by an elaborate street parade and a blitz of posters and newspaper ads. Lipton would be on hand, donned in white apron and overalls, offering a prize to the first purchaser.
For Christmas 1881 Lipton became determined to bring Glasgow the largest cheese ever made. For six days 800 cows and 200 dairymaids gave all for the behemoth cheese - to the delight of townsfolk who were kept informed of every detail by Lipton. When the steamer carrying the cheese chugged into port crowds were waiting. They lined the streets to cheer the progress of the cheese on its trip to the store.
When it arrived Lipton ostentatiously inserted gold sovereigns into the cheese. It was on display all December in the shop window and when it was finally sliced up on Christmas Eve police had to be called in to control the crowds. Lipton sold every ounce of cheese in two hours.
Monster cheeses became a Lipton Christmas trademark. When police advised that the public might choke themselves by innocently swallowing coins Lipton gleefully advertised the “POLICE WARNING” that anybody buying a portion of Lipton’s Giant Cheese was in danger of being choked by one of the many gold sovereigns concealed in it. Lipton couldn’t sell the cheese fast enough.
Thomas Lipton was 40 years old before he sold an ounce of tea. In 1890 he sailed to Australia, ostensibly for rest, but stopped in Ceylon to investigate some supplies of tea. The British had been drinking tea for 200 years but it was expensive, sold from ornate chests and carefully weighed out. Lipton reasoned that he could attract business by packaging tea in tiny packets and create one brand, rather than a commodity. He sent some tea home with the slogan “Direct from the tea gardens to teapot.” By the time he returned to Scotland his 300 shops couldn’t handle the demand.
He bought a tea plantation in Ceylon to supply his stores directly. As his teas became known around the world he bought more and more tea and coffee plantations. The man who once opened every one of his stores personally never saw all of his world-wide properties.
His first recognition from the British Royal family came in 1898 when he was knighted for contributing $125,000 to supply the tea consumed by 300,000 poverty-stricken Londoners in the week of Queen Victoria’s jubilee. That same year Lipton sent his various businesses public; his fortune was estimated at $50,000,000.
For the final 33 years of his life Sir Thomas Lipton pursued yachting’s America’s Cup, which at that time had never left America. He made five challenges in all, building all contenders himself at a personal expense in excess of $5,000,000. Sir Thomas was never successful but gained an international reputation for sportsmanship.
He so endeared himself to Americans that on the occasion of the defeat of Shamrock V, his final challenger, money was raised to present Lipton with a golden loving cup, the symbol of his election by Americans as “the gamest loser in the world of sport.” Before he died the next year in 1931 at the age of 81 Sir Thomas stated, “My greatest regret is that I have never lifted the America’s Cup.”
Thomas Lipton
Many of the fortunes made in the 19th century were by European immigrants who applied Old World skills in their adopted land of America. Thomas Lipton was different. He came to America, looked around for a while, and took what he learned in the New World back to Scotland to make one of the greatest fortunes of all.
Lipton began work at the age of 10 in 1860 to help his family. He toiled as a stationer’s apprentice, a hosier’s helper and a cabin boy before scraping together $18 for steerage to New York City in the spring of 1865. He arrived with a mere $8 in his pocket but struck a deal at dockside to round up a dozen lodgers in exchange for free room to himself.
The post-Civil War South needed labor to rebuild and Lipton headed there for the next 40 months. He showed up in the South Carolina rice fields, on the New Orleans streets as a carman, in Charleston fighting fires and keeping books on a plantation. He finally returned to New York as a grocery clerk where he became entranced by the American way of merchandising - attractive displays, salesman interested in customers, and especially flamboyant promotions.
At a time when ambitious young men were exploiting the unlimited potential of America Lipton took the $500 he had saved and returned to Scotland. He opened his first shop in Glasgow on May 10, 1871. He bought directly from farmers and crofters in cash, never borrowed and lived for his work. But so did many others. What set Lipton apart was his flair for advertising and showmanship - techniques he had learned in the United States.
Lipton hired one of Scotland’s leading cartoonists to produce a fresh poster for his shop window each week. He employed an Irishman in knee breeches, cutaway coat and a cocked hat to promote his Irish bacon by driving two scrubbed and polished pigs named “Lipton’s Orphans” through the Glasgow streets to his shop - always by a different route.
He erected a pair of mirrors on the walk in front of the shop. One was concave producing an elongated body with a haggard face. That was “Going to Lipton’s.” The other was convex which caused a paunchy look and an inevitable smile. That was “Coming from Lipton’s.” He provided entertainment for children to free mothers to shop.
In six months he set up another shop - the forerunner of the food chains of today. By 1880 Lipton operated 20 shops with the goal of a new one every week. Each opening was preceded by an elaborate street parade and a blitz of posters and newspaper ads. Lipton would be on hand, donned in white apron and overalls, offering a prize to the first purchaser.
For Christmas 1881 Lipton became determined to bring Glasgow the largest cheese ever made. For six days 800 cows and 200 dairymaids gave all for the behemoth cheese - to the delight of townsfolk who were kept informed of every detail by Lipton. When the steamer carrying the cheese chugged into port crowds were waiting. They lined the streets to cheer the progress of the cheese on its trip to the store.
When it arrived Lipton ostentatiously inserted gold sovereigns into the cheese. It was on display all December in the shop window and when it was finally sliced up on Christmas Eve police had to be called in to control the crowds. Lipton sold every ounce of cheese in two hours.
Monster cheeses became a Lipton Christmas trademark. When police advised that the public might choke themselves by innocently swallowing coins Lipton gleefully advertised the “POLICE WARNING” that anybody buying a portion of Lipton’s Giant Cheese was in danger of being choked by one of the many gold sovereigns concealed in it. Lipton couldn’t sell the cheese fast enough.
Thomas Lipton was 40 years old before he sold an ounce of tea. In 1890 he sailed to Australia, ostensibly for rest, but stopped in Ceylon to investigate some supplies of tea. The British had been drinking tea for 200 years but it was expensive, sold from ornate chests and carefully weighed out. Lipton reasoned that he could attract business by packaging tea in tiny packets and create one brand, rather than a commodity. He sent some tea home with the slogan “Direct from the tea gardens to teapot.” By the time he returned to Scotland his 300 shops couldn’t handle the demand.
He bought a tea plantation in Ceylon to supply his stores directly. As his teas became known around the world he bought more and more tea and coffee plantations. The man who once opened every one of his stores personally never saw all of his world-wide properties.
His first recognition from the British Royal family came in 1898 when he was knighted for contributing $125,000 to supply the tea consumed by 300,000 poverty-stricken Londoners in the week of Queen Victoria’s jubilee. That same year Lipton sent his various businesses public; his fortune was estimated at $50,000,000.
For the final 33 years of his life Sir Thomas Lipton pursued yachting’s America’s Cup, which at that time had never left America. He made five challenges in all, building all contenders himself at a personal expense in excess of $5,000,000. Sir Thomas was never successful but gained an international reputation for sportsmanship.
He so endeared himself to Americans that on the occasion of the defeat of Shamrock V, his final challenger, money was raised to present Lipton with a golden loving cup, the symbol of his election by Americans as “the gamest loser in the world of sport.” Before he died the next year in 1931 at the age of 81 Sir Thomas stated, “My greatest regret is that I have never lifted the America’s Cup.”
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