WHO INVENTED THE FIRST TV DINNER?
The invention of the first TV dinner is often debated because while Swanson was the first to brand their product using the label "TV dinner", they were not the first company to sell a frozen meal. The common story says that Swanson employee named Gerry Thomas came up with the idea. Swanson grossly over estimated turkey sales in the thanksgiving of 1953, had a huge amount of excess frozen turkey. With no more freezer storage, the turkeys sat on storage cars running along the rail road. Thomas had been on a plane when he was served an airplane meal in a tray. He brought that idea to the Swanson brothers, and the TV dinner was born.
The first Swanson TV dinner consisted of peas and mashed potatoes, each topped with a pat of butter, cornbread dressing, and slices of turkey topped with gravy. It was served in a three compartment aluminum tray. With the price starting at $0.98 it cost roughly a dollar more to buy four Swanson TV dinners in 1954 than to make the same meal from scratch.
Before Swanson, there were quite a few companies that attempted frozen meals, but none were anywhere as successful. In 1945, Maxson Foods Systems made the first complete frozen meals to be reheated on airplanes for military and civilian passengers. Later Jack Fisher’s frozen “FridgiDinners” were sold to taverns. In Pittsburgh 1949, Albert and Meyer Berstein’s Frozen Dinners, Inc. sold three compartment aluminum frozen dinners to groceries. Quaker Foods sold 2,500,000 million of their frozen dinners by 1954. However, in 1954, Swanson had already sold 10,000,000 TV dinners.
The first Swanson TV dinner consisted of peas and mashed potatoes, each topped with a pat of butter, cornbread dressing, and slices of turkey topped with gravy. It was served in a three compartment aluminum tray. With the price starting at $0.98 it cost roughly a dollar more to buy four Swanson TV dinners in 1954 than to make the same meal from scratch.
Before Swanson, there were quite a few companies that attempted frozen meals, but none were anywhere as successful. In 1945, Maxson Foods Systems made the first complete frozen meals to be reheated on airplanes for military and civilian passengers. Later Jack Fisher’s frozen “FridgiDinners” were sold to taverns. In Pittsburgh 1949, Albert and Meyer Berstein’s Frozen Dinners, Inc. sold three compartment aluminum frozen dinners to groceries. Quaker Foods sold 2,500,000 million of their frozen dinners by 1954. However, in 1954, Swanson had already sold 10,000,000 TV dinners.
Frozen Meals before the TV Dinner
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Jack Fisher: FrigiDinners
After Maxson Foods Systems came Jack Fisher’s FridgiDinners. FridgiDinners sold their frozen dinners to bars and taverns in the late 1940s. These frozen dinners didn’t succeed so well either. |
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Frozen Dinners, Inc:
One-Eyed Eskimo Albert and Meyer Bernstein had the best success with frozen meals until Swanson showed up. In 1949, they organized Frozen Dinners, Inc., that packaged frozen dinners on aluminum trays with three compartments - the same as Swanson later does. These frozen dinners were sold under the One-Eyed Eskimo label, and they were only sold in the Pittsburgh area. However, by 1950 the company had produced over 400,000 frozen dinners. The demand for their dinners continued to grow. In 1952, the Bernstein brothers formed the Quaker State Food Corporation, expanding their distribution to markets east of the Mississippi River. By 1954, they had produced and sold roughly 2,500,000 of their frozen dinners. |
The Delight of Frozen Meals
Not only was there the freedom of being able to eat in any room, not just in the kitchen, but there was also the freedom of being able to eat the meal you wanted - even if your family wanted something else. This feeling was exemplified in a quote from a blog that I found where a man talked about his all time favorite TV dinner.
"My parents both worked full-time, so starting at age 7 or 8, they would send me to the store maybe twice a month and let me pick out whatever Swanson's pot pie or TV dinner I wanted. There was something empowering about this exercise, and the responsibility bestowed upon me vastly overshadowed the fact that the food was awful. For seven years I had been told what to eat and wear, when to sleep and where to go every day. For the first time in my life, I got to choose. It didn’t really matter that the choice was between salisbury steak and turkey with gravy. TV dinners were my independence."
Peter Harlaub from What's your all-time favorite TV dinner Because there was so much variety in what kind of meal you could choose, frozen TV dinners became a symbol of freedom and independence. Each member of the family could have their own, different meals but still eat together thanks to the frozen dinners. This feeling individuality catered well to the kids and teenagers growing up in the 1950s.
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