In 1890, Canadian
pharmacist and
chemist John J. McLaughlin of
Enniskillen, Ontario, after working in a
soda factory in Brooklyn, New York, opened a
carbonated water plant in Toronto. McLaughlin was the eldest son of
Robert McLaughlin, founder of
McLaughlin Carriage and McLaughlin Motor Car. In 1904, McLaughlin created "Canada Dry Pale Ginger Ale". Three years later, the drink was appointed to the Viceregal Household of the
Governor General of Canada and the label featuring a beaver atop a map of Canada was replaced with the present crown and shield label. When McLaughlin began shipping his product to
New York, it became so popular that he opened a plant in
Manhattan shortly thereafter. After McLaughlin's death in 1914, the company was run briefly by his brother,
Samuel McLaughlin. P. D. Saylor and Associates bought the business from the McLaughlin family in 1923 and formed Canada Dry Ginger Ale, Inc., a public company. In 1984, Dr Pepper was acquired by
Forstmann Little & Company, and Canada Dry was sold to
R. J. Reynolds'
Del Monte Foods unit to pay off acquisition debt.
RJR Nabisco sold its soft drink business to
Cadbury Schweppes in 1986. Today, Canada Dry is owned by
Keurig Dr Pepper, which was spun off from Cadbury Schweppes in 2008.
'Made from Real Ginger' lawsuits In 2019, Canada Dry faced
false advertising lawsuits from a few consumers who requested
class action status. Although the ingredients included a
natural flavour extract made from ginger root, the plaintiffs said the drink did not have enough ginger flavor for people to be able to taste it, and that they thought the advertising slogan indicated that the drink was "made by chopping or powdering the root of the ginger plant", instead of using a small amount of liquid extracted from a ginger root. In early 2019, a class-action lawsuit was requested in Canada, where the
Canadian Food Inspection Agency regulations specify that ingredients in food may be described as "real" if that ingredient "is present in the food, regardless of what form (e.g., frozen, powdered, ground, concentrated, etc.)". The subjectivity of how much ginger is necessary before a product can be fairly described as being "made from real ginger" prompted one author to quip that "The truth is in the lie of the beholder". , May 1946 ==Marketing==