Jif (lemon juice) facts for kids
A Jif lemon with the label attached
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| Owner | Unilever |
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| Introduced | 1956 |
| Markets | United Kingdom and Ireland |
| Previous owners | Reckitt and Colman |
Jif is a well-known brand of lemon juice. It's made from lemon juice concentrate mixed with water. This popular lemon juice is sold in the United Kingdom and Ireland by a company called Unilever.
People use Jif to add a lemony taste to many different dishes. You can use it as an ingredient when you're cooking or as a topping for food. For example, two tablespoons of Jif lemon juice are about the same as the juice from one fresh lemon. Jif can stay fresh for about six months.
Jif is famous for its special lemon-shaped plastic containers. These squeezable containers were one of the first plastic food containers ever made using a method called blow moulding. The Jif brand of lemon juice started in 1956.
In the 1980s, a company from the US tried to sell lemon juice in a very similar lemon-shaped bottle in the UK. This led to a famous legal case known as the "Jif Lemon case." The company that owned Jif, Reckitt & Colman, won the case in 1990.
Jif is often used on pancakes, especially for Shrove Tuesday. Since 1985, Jif has used the slogan "Don't forget the pancakes on Jif Lemon Day" to remind people to use their product on this special day.
Contents
What is Jif Lemon Juice Made Of?
| Nutritional value per 5 ml | |
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| Energy | 1 kcal (4.2 kJ) |
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0.1 g
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Source:
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| †Percentages estimated using US recommendations for adults. | |
Jif lemon juice is mainly made from lemon concentrate and water. It's carefully mixed to have the same strength as natural lemons. The product also contains a food preservative called E223 (sodium metabisulphite) to keep it fresh.
Jif has a shelf life of six months. This means it can be stored for up to half a year before it goes bad. Remember, two tablespoons of Jif give you the same amount of juice as one whole lemon!
Nutrition Facts for Jif
A small serving of Jif, about 5 millilitres (which is like one teaspoon), gives you 1 kilocalorie of energy. It also contains 0.1 grams of carbohydrates.
How to Use Jif Lemon Juice
Jif is a very versatile ingredient in the kitchen. You can use it to add a tangy flavour to many different foods and dishes. It's also great as a condiment, which means something you add to food at the table, like on pancakes!
You can use Jif to brighten up salads, make sauces more delicious, or add a zesty taste to fish and seafood. If a recipe asks for lemon juice, Jif can usually be used instead.
Jif's Unique Packaging
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Jif lemon juice is famous for its special lemon-shaped plastic containers. These small containers usually hold 55 millilitres of juice and are often called "jiffy lemons" or "jif lemons." You can also buy Jif lemon juice in regular bottles.
The plastic container is a squeeze pack. When you squeeze it, the juice comes out of a small nozzle. In 1956, when Jif first started, the brand name "Jif" was pressed into the plastic of the containers. Today, Jif containers often have the words "Jif real lemon juice" pressed into their side.
The first Jif plastic containers were made from a type of plastic called polythene. These were some of the very first plastic containers made using a method called blow moulding for food products. The idea was to replace glass bottles, which were used before for lemon juice.
The clever idea for the plastic lemon container came from Edward Hack. The design of the container was created by Bill Pugh, who was the main plastics designer at a company called Cascelloid. To make the design realistic, Pugh carved a wooden shape, covered it with real lemon peel to get the right texture, and then made a plaster mould from it. This is how the realistic lemon-shaped container was created!
Some people say that similar plastic lemon packaging might have existed in Italy even before World War II ended.
The History of Jif
Early Lemon Juice Brands
The idea of putting lemon juice into lemon-shaped plastic containers started in the 1950s with Edward Hack. He developed the first model for this unique packaging. A company called Cascelloid Ltd. then designed and produced the product.
Hack brought a fresh lemon from Covent Garden market for Cascelloid to use as a model for the plastic container. He had searched many markets to find the perfect lemon! Bill Pugh, the chief plastics designer at Cascelloid, created the first plastic lemon-shaped container based on Hack's idea. This plastic lemon was first used for a product called Hax lemon juice.
Another person, Stanley Wagner, also had a similar idea for a plastic lemon container. His company, Coldcrops, Ltd., produced a lemon juice called Realemon. This brand later changed its name to ReaLem. Hax lemon juice was the first to be sold in the lemon-shaped container, with Coldcrops following soon after.
Between mid-1955 and early 1956, over six million of these plastic juice lemons were sold by Coldcrops. The name "Realemon" was changed to "ReaLem" after a government department had concerns about it. Coldcrops then marketed their product with the slogan "juice in a jiffy."
The Jif Brand is Born
The company Reckitt and Colman bought Coldcrops in 1956. After a long talk, a deal was made. This deal meant that Reckitt & Colman now owned the special packaging and the idea behind it. The new Jif-brand lemon juice was launched in 1956.
Everyone was happy with the deal! Stanley Wagner received a good amount of money, and Reckitt's was pleased because they got the business for less than they were prepared to pay. Lemon farmers in Sicily were also happy because the demand for their lemon juice, which was often a leftover from making lemon oil, increased a lot. For many years, Sicilians didn't have much use for the juice, but now there was a growing market for it.
In 1970, Jif was still made with lemon juice from Sicily. Much later, in 1995, a large company called Unilever bought the Jif brand.
When Jif first launched in 1956, its slogan was "Real lemon juice in a Jif." At that time, Jif was the only brand of lemon juice sold in a squeeze pack container in the United Kingdom.
Jif's Competitors and the Famous Case
In 1962, a US company called Borden bought the rights to the ReaLemon brand of lemon juice in the United States. ReaLemon had started making lemon juice in the US in the 1930s.
By 1975, ReaLemon was selling well in Europe. Borden then started selling its lemon juice in the United Kingdom. By 1980, ReaLemon had about 25% of the UK lemon juice market. To compete, Reckitt & Colman started selling Jif in larger bottles too.
Then, Borden planned to sell ReaLemon in a lemon-shaped package that looked very similar to Jif's. This led to a lawsuit! Reckitt & Colman sued Borden, saying that ReaLemon was trying to copy Jif's packaging to trick customers into thinking it was Jif.
This legal battle became known as "The Jif Lemon case." The case was decided in 1990 by the Court of Appeal. The court ruled that Jif's packaging was so well-known that it had a strong reputation. The ruling said that customers would likely think the ReaLemon product was a Jif Lemon when they saw it in a shop. Reckitt & Colman won the case, even though they hadn't officially registered the plastic lemon packaging as their own design.
Marketing Jif for Pancakes
Jif is often used on pancakes, especially on Shrove Tuesday, which is also known as Pancake Day. An advertising campaign started the famous phrase "Don't forget the pancakes on Jif lemon day." This slogan was created by Reckitt and Colman's advertising agency.
The lemon-shaped packaging of Jif helped people connect the product with eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. This created a very strong link between Jif and Pancake Day in people's minds. Jif and pancakes are a very popular combination on Shrove Tuesday.
In the year 2000, more than 80,000 Jif lemons were being made every day to meet the high demand for Pancake Day. This production started five weeks before Pancake Day! These adverts were shown on TV in Ireland and the United Kingdom throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.
See also
- ReaLemon
- Cif
