Jiffy Pop

Jiffy Pop is a popcorn brand of ConAgra Foods. The product combines unpopped popcorn kernels and oil with an aluminum pan and folded aluminum foil lid. As the pan is heated, the popping corn causes the foil to unfold and puff up. Jiffy in the name references the short cooking time.

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History

Frederick C. Mennen of LaPorte, Indiana, a chemist, inventor and industrialist[1], is credited with developing the product in 1958. Mennen began marketing Jiffy Pop in 1959[2]. American Home Products purchased Jiffy Pop from Mennen that same year, and within one year the product had reached the national U.S. market.

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.[3] 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 equivalent products, but the case was overturned on appeal.[4]

In the early 1970s, magician Harry Blackstone, Jr., appeared on several TV commercials for Jiffy Pop, emphasizing the corn's "magical" appearance from its aluminum foil lid after popping.

American Home Products spun off its food division, and renamed it International Home Foods, in 1996. In 2000, ConAgra purchased International Home Foods.

In Popular Culture

In the 1996 horror movie Scream, Drew Barrymore's character Casey Becker can be seen making Jiffy Pop in one of the opening scenes.

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