It began late that year with the purchase of the Jell-O Company. Jell-O had been first produced in 1897 by Pearl B. Wait. His product was based on a patent that had been issued to Peter Cooper, the inventor and industrialist, in 1845, but which Cooper had never developed commercially. However, Wait was unsuccessful in marketing Jell-O, and in 1899, he sold the rights to it for $450 to a neighbor, Orator Francis Woodward, who had founded the Genesee Pure Food Company in 1897. Genesee became the Jell-O Company in 1923, the same year it began marketing D-Zerta, a sugar-free gelatin, and a powdered mixture for making ice cream in the kitchen.