My Uncle J.J. Kagan born in Luninets, Belarus (then Poland) was the only child of six that went all the way to a PhD and got a job with Lipton’s in Hoboken New Jersey. He didn’t talk about his job but before he died he started talking a little bit and he gave me documents to keep for the future showing that he came up with the formula for the first instant style cup of soup which he claimed to think of and got the OK from Lipton’s VP to develop.
Once he became a big shot at the company he had access to the lab to develop more products, since Lipton’s Cup of Soup is now a billion dollar product with tens of thousands of factories producing similar products after the trademark expired. One day he was in a grocery store and saw that Nestle had a real Ice Tea product, so he bought a package and took it back to the lab.
He found out that it was actually synthetic ice tea and he went up to the VP’s office to tell him. He was told to make a REAL ice tea product and he went to the lab to do so. I don’t know the timeline but he did achieve the goal or mission and produced a REAL Ice Tea for Lipton’s putting him the most prestigious magazine for science Men Of Science (now called Men and Women Of Science) for the invention. Lipton’s then sued Nestle to stop displaying the word REAL on their product since Lipton’s had the real thing, thanks to my Uncle Johnny Kagan.
