Popsicle

Street vendors called Hokey-Pokies sold frozen fruit juices as early as the 1870s on the streets of New York and other American cities, but it was Frank Epperson, a lemonade salesman from Oakland, California, who began to manufacture fruit ices commercially, in 1923. Epsicles, as he first called them, were ice pops on wooden sticks. He trademarked the name, which was later changed to Popsicle. In 1925, Epperson sold the rights to the product to the Joe Lowe Company of New York. By 1928, more than 60 million Popsicles were sold annually. Consolidated Foods Corporation acquired the company in 1965. Twenty-one years later, the Gold Bond Ice Cream Company of Green Bay, Wisconsin, bought Popsicle’s American operations. In 1989, Unilever bought Gold Bond. Unilever also owns Good Humor, Dove, Klondike, and Breyers.