Halls (cough drop)


Halls is the brand name of a popular mentholated cough drop. Halls cough drops are sold by the Cadbury-Adams Division of Cadbury, now owned by Mondelēz International, and have long been advertised as featuring "Vapor Action". Halls was first made in the 1930s in Stanley Road, Whitefield, Lancashire, United Kingdom by the Halls Brothers company, founded 1893 by Thomas Harold Hall and Norman Smith Hall. Halls Brothers was acquired by Warner-Lambert in 1964. Production in Whitefield ceased in the late 1980s. When Pfizer acquired Warner-Lambert in 2000, the Halls brand came with the entire Adams portfolio. Two years later, Adams was bought out by Cadbury, who were subsequently purchased by Kraft foods, which was later restructured and renamed Mondelēz International - as of 2015, Mondelēz International owns the Halls brand worldwide.

Varieties

The following Halls varieties are listed on Cadbury's UK web site.
The "Soothers" varieties do not list menthol on their ingredients and their packaging does not describe them as a medicine or specify any dosage instructions, but supermarkets frequently categorise them as common cold treatment.

Drug information

The menthol ingredient acts as local anesthetic and "creates a cooling sensation". Also acts as a cough suppressant.
The Halls Defense line consists of flavorings containing Vitamin C but do not contain menthol or suppress coughs.
Halls Fruit Breezers, launched as a non-mentholated lozenge, comes in many flavors such as:
Cool Berry,
Cool Creamy Orange,
Cool Creamy Strawberry,
Tropical Chill,
and Cool Citrus Blend.
Halls also produces a sugar-free line of mentholated cough drops.
In some parts of the world, including Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, the Philippines, and Pakistan, Halls is advertised as a mentholated hard candy and is not recognized as a medicine for coughs. In the UK, Halls Extra Strong has recently dropped all mention of an active ingredient from the packaging, and now describes the contents as "Extra Strong Original flavour hard boiled sweets."
In 2015 the renowned actor Jeff Goldblum almost choked on a Halls cough drop. The event was broadcast on American television channel TBS.
In 2016 Halls was one of the biggest selling branded over-the-counter medications sold in Great Britain, with sales of £32.5 million.