Maxwell House - Expansion of The Product Line

Expansion of The Product Line

In 1942 General Foods Corporation, the successor to the Postum Company, began supplying instant coffee to the U.S. armed forces. Beginning in the fall of 1945 this product, now branded as Maxwell House Instant Coffee, entered test markets in the eastern U.S. and began national distribution the following year.

In 1966 the company introduced "Maxwell House ElectraPerk", developed specifically for electric percolators.

In 1969, General Foods in the UK launched granulated coffee. They used a pantomime stage format in the London Hilton for a show called "Once Upon a Coffee Time". In this story the weak "Prince of Powdah" and his mentor "Reschem" travel the world in search of blends. Meeting and falling in love with "Princess Purity", and fighting the dragon "Old Hat", the young man emerges as"Prince Granulo", heir to the Kingdom of Maxwell. This show was written by Michael Ingrams, produced by the Mitchell Monkhouse Agency and designed by Malcolm Lewis and Chris Miles of Media.

In 1976 the product was joined by "Maxwell House A.D.C." coffee, the name reflecting its intended use in automatic drip coffee makers such as Mr. Coffee, which were in the process of pushing aside traditional coffee-preparation methods. In 1972 the company had introduced "Max-Pax" ground coffee filter rings, aimed at the then still-strong market for drip coffee preparation. Although this method, too, has been eclipsed, the Max-Pax concept was subsequently adapted as Maxwell House Filter Packs (1989) for use in automatic coffee makers. By the 1990s formulations for specific preparation methods had been quietly discontinued. The brand is now marketed in ground and pre-measured forms, as well as in whole-bean, flavored and varietal blends. A higher-yield ground coffee, "Maxwell House Master Blend," was introduced in 1981 and "Rich French Roast," "Colombian Supreme," and "1892," a "slow-roasted" formulation, in 1989. In 1992, the company added cappuccino products to its line with Cappio Iced Cappuccino in that year and Maxwell House Cappuccino in 1993. In recent years the names of these products have been modified by the company to present a more "uniform" Maxwell House brand image.

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