History
Puddings are similar to custards, but thickened with cornstarch instead of eggs. Powdered mixes for puddings originated in England, where Andrew Bird created and began selling a mix for a cornstarch based custard in 1837. Puddings soon caught on in the United States as well, where My-T-Fine began selling the first boxed pudding mix (chocolate) in 1918. My-T-Fine continues today, marketing powdered pudding mixes in a variety of flavors.
References
My-T-Fine Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA