7UP in history

In the village of Price's Branch, Missouri, a Mr Charles Leiper Grigg invented a popular orange drink in 1920 called Howdy. He launched his company as The Howdy Corporation. In order to improve it he marketed another drink in 1929 under the name of “Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda,” it was originally formulated with lithium citrate as one of its active ingredients.

The beverage was a caramel-colored, lithiated lemon-lime soda, which he placed as a drink with a "flavor wallop" to market alongside Howdy Orange drink. The sales were bad. At the same time, more than 600 lemon-lime soft drinks were already in the marketplace.

Grigg spent more than two years testing eleven different formulas of lemon-flavored drinks. He settled on one that fulfilled his criteria, being both refreshing and thirst quenching - the drink recognized today as 7UP.

Acknowledging the success of the 7UP trademark, in 1936, C. L. Grigg changed the Corporation’s name from The Howdy Corporation to The Seven-Up Company. By the late 1940s, 7UP had become the third best-selling soft drink in the world.

The company was took over by Westinghouse in 1969 and in June 1978, Philip Morris acquired The Seven Up Company. In early 1987, Cherry 7UP and Diet 7UP were introduced. The target market was young people and it was instant success across the country.

In 1986, investment firm Hicks and Hass bought The Seven Up Company before the latter merged with Dr Pepper in 1988. The Dr Pepper Snapple Group was spun off from Cadbury Schweppes in 2008; it merged with Keurig Green Mountain in 2018 to form Keurig Dr Pepper. Now the rights to the brand of 7UP are held by Keurig Dr Pepper.
7UP in history

Invention of 7 UP by Mr. C.L. Grigg

In 1920, Charles Leiper Grigg launched Howdy – a light carbonated but very sweet orange flavored soda.

Although he had built a network of nearly 400 bottlers by the mid-1920s, Howdy struggled, overshadowed by the rapid rise of Orange Crush, a rival orange soda from Chicago.

Grigg found his beverage under attack from rivals for its lack of juice and new laws forced him to label Howdy an orange-flavored drink rather than an orange drink.

Grigg spent more than two years experimenting with over 11 different formulas, all in search for lemon-flavored drinks before finalizing on Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda. The drink contained lithium citrate a mood stabilizer.

Manufactured by Grigg’s Howdy Corporation, this soft drink appeared for sale in the fall of 1929 in St. Louis, Missouri, just two weeks before the great stock market crash.

Initially available in St. Louis and successfully despite the poor timing, the name soon changed to 7-UP.

The lithium citrate was abandoned in the drink in 1950, as lithium was found to cause side effects such as dizziness, nausea and thyroid problems.

The origin of the 7UP name is disputed.  Some theorizes that it came from the number of ingredients in the soda, while others say it came from the size of the 7-ounces in which the drink was first sold. Also there were a theory  said that the name came from a popular card game at the time called 7UP and form a cattle brand Charlie Grigg saw one day.

In 1933 syrup sales topped 174,000gallons shooting up to 2,074,000 gallons a year by 1936, after Grigg’s post-Prohibition decision to start promotion his soda as a mixer that ‘tames whiskey’ and ‘glorifies gin’.

In the 1940s, 7-UP had successfully moved to the number three sales among soft drinks; only Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola outranked it.
Invention of 7 UP by Mr. C.L. Grigg

History of 7-Up Name Origin

History of 7-Up Name Origin
In the village of Price’s Branch, Missouri, a Mr C.L. Griggs invented popular orange drink in 1920 called Howdy.

Aiming to improve on it, Griggs marketed another drinks as Bib-label Lithiated lemon-Lime Soda.

The drink was tasty but the sales were bad (with that name, hardly surprising), so he tried to think of a better name.

The story goes that after six tries he came up with ‘7-Up’, and this was the name that made the drink the bestseller it is today.

No doubt the association with the card game seven-up helps in the game the trump card is a turned-up card and there is a fixed total of seven points to win.
History of 7-Up Name Origin