Slurpees - a licensing Cinderella Story

[TedM]

http://priceonomics.com/the-invention-of-the-slurpee

If you don't have the patience for a good read, here are the most pertinent quotes:

In 1958, a Dairy Queen owner in Kansas inadvertently started what would become a beverage empire.

Omar Knedlik was an unlikely inventor: he grew up poor, fought in World War II, and subsequently purchased a few ice cream shops with his military pay. He did well for a while, but when a series of poor hotel investments whittled his finances, he cashed out, moved to Kansas, and took over a Dairy Queen.

Knedlik’s franchise didn’t have a soda fountain, so he began placing shipments of bottled soda in his freezer to keep them cool. On one occasion, he left the sodas in a little too long, and had to apologetically serve them to his customers half-frozen; they were immensely popular.

When people began to show up demanding the beverages, Knedlik realized he had to find a way to scale, and formulated plans to build a machine that could help him do so. He reached out to The John E. Mitchell Company -- a Dallas-based outfit that had previously made cotton cleaning equipment, but had “pivoted” into selling aftermarket automobile air conditioners. The company developed an interest in becoming an original equipment manufacturer (OEM), and agreed to help Knedlik with his vision.

Five years of trial and error ensued, resulting in a contraption that utilized an automobile air conditioning unit to replicate a slushy consistency. The machine featured a separate spout for each flavor (only two at this point), and a “tumbler” which constantly rotated the contents to keep them from becoming a frozen block.

And what ever became of Omar Knedlik, the beverage’s founding father? He received royalty payments from 7-Eleven for 17 years, until his machine’s patent expired in the early 1980s. A slew of other machines entered the market and he faded into the annals of folklore.

 

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