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