As any Blue Peter viewer knows, the uses for an empty Jif lemon container (sorry, "squeezy lemon container") are many. In my handicrafts career, they have been pressed into service as Christmas decorations, spaceships and piggy banks.
The container in question, a modern masterpiece, was designed by Bill Pugh, working for a Leicester plastics company called Cascelloid. The company had a plastic-blowing machine - one of only two in the world at the time - and Pugh's first novelty design (launched in 1949) was a pink plastic teddy bear for baby powder.
The lemon, originally designed to contain lemon juice made by a company called Hax, soon followed. He made it by carving a lemon shape out of wood, and then covering it with real lemon peel before casting it in plaster - experimenting until he got the shape and feel just right. Reckitt & Colman bought the rights to the packaging and launched their Jif lemon in January 1957.
It's easy to see why the design was such a success. This was a clean and economical way to add a spritz of lemon to a dish without wasting unwanted juice or messing about with pips and pulp. And perhaps because of its shape, the housewife felt less guilty about not using real fruit, although what she was actually getting was lemon juice plus E223 (sodium metabisulphite) which acts as a preservative.
Although a plastic lemon is a perfectly logical container in which to package lemon juice, when a large us company attempted to introduce a lemon juice packaged in a similar fashion, Jif took their case against them all the way to the House of Lords. Their Lordships banned all imitations, so now if you see a "squeezy lemon container" you know firstly that the only substance it can have had in it is Jif lemon juice and secondly that it's time to get out the double-sided sticky tape.