TV dinner

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TV Dinner is the trademark for a brand of packaged meal developed by Gerry Thomas in 1954 for C.A. Swanson & Sons, which at the time was a subsidiary of Campbell Soup Company. The name in full was TV Brand Frozen Dinner. In informal usage, "TV Dinner" eventually became synonymous with any prepackaged dinner purchased frozen in a supermarket and heated at home. The original TV Dinner came in an aluminum tray and was heated in an oven. Most frozen food trays are now made of microwaveable material.

History of the TV Dinner

Gerry Thomas, the inventor, worked for Swanson foods in Omaha, Nebraska. He wanted to develop a way to use frozen turkey meat, which was left over after Thanksgiving sales. Adapting the single-compartment trays used at the time for airline food service, he packaged leftover turkey with cornbread dressing, frozen peas and sweet potatoes. Each item was placed in its own compartment. The trays were useful: the entire dinner could be removed from the outer packaging as a unit; the aluminum tray could be heated directly in the oven without any extra baking dishes; and one could eat the meal directly out of the same tray.

The original TV Dinner sold for 98 cents in 1954, and had a production estimate of 5,000 dinners for the first year. Swanson far exceeded its expectations, and ended up selling more than 10 million of these dinners in the first year of production. The innovative products could be cooked in 25 minutes at 425° F, and fit nicely on a TV tray.

Early TV Dinners featured the image of a television set on the package. Swanson stopped using the moniker "TV Dinner" in 1962.

Much has changed since the first TV Dinners were marketed. For instance, a wider variety of entreés — such as fried chicken, salisbury steak and Mexican combinations — have been introduced. Competitors such as Banquet began offering prepackaged frozen dinners. Other changes include:

• 1960 – Swanson added desserts (such as apple cobbler and brownies) to a new four-compartment tray.
• 1969 – The first TV breakfasts were marketed (pancakes and sausage was the favorite). Great Starts Breakfasts and breakfast sandwiches (such as egg and Canadian bacon) followed later.
• 1973 – The first Swanson Hungry Man dinners were marketed; these were larger portions of its regular dinner products. "Mean" Joe Greene, football player, was its spokesman.
• 1986 – The first microwave oven-safe trays were marketed.

TV Dinners were celebrated in a song of the same name by ZZ Top on the album Eliminator.

Modern day frozen dinners tend to come in microwave-safe containers. Product lines also tend to offer a larger variety of dinner types. These dinners, also known as microwave meals, can be purchased at almost every supermarket. Prices range for several of the top selling companies starting at about $1 to some pricier brands $5.

Precursors to the TV Dinner

In her book Something from the Oven: Reinventing Dinner in 1950s America (New York: Penguin Books, 2004), Laura Shapiro writes about several prepackaged meals that were marketed before Swanson's TV Dinner, which she states quite plainly "came late to the full-meal idea," (p. 18). "In 1948, plain frozen fruits and vegetables were joined by...what were called 'dinner plates' with an entrée, potato, and vegetable," (p. 12). Later in 1952, the first frozen dinners on oven-ready aluminum trays were introduced by Quaker States Foods under the One-Eye Eskimo label (pp. 17-8). Quaker States Foods was joined by other companies including Frigi-Dinner, which offered such fare as beef stew with corn and peas, veal goulash with peas and potatoes, and chicken chow mein with egg rolls and fried rice, (p. 18). But Ms. Shapiro points out that "...it took Swanson, a well-known Omaha producer of canned and frozen poultry, to give the concept landmark status and a generic identity," (p. 18). She cites three key "ingredients" to the pre-existing formula for Swanson's success: 1) Swanson's nationally recognized brand name; 2) an extensive national marketing campaign, nicknamed "Operation Smash"; and 3) the "inspired" brandname "TV dinner" that tapped into the public's excitement around the new device (p. 18).

Health

Frozen dinners, as well as canned soups and broths, are often criticized for having an overabundance of sodium, usually in the form of table salt or soy sauce. Stabilizing the product for a long period of time typically means that companies will use hydrogenated vegetable oils, which are high in trans fats, that can adversely affect cardiovascular health. Due to market demographics, only a slim percentage of frozen dinners border on anything near nutritious. Healthy Choice is one of the manufacturers marketing to the health conscious niche.

See also

• TV tray
• Ready meal

External links

• [1950's pop Culture Website: TV Dinners]
• [Food Reference Website: TV Dinners]
• [TV Dinner reviews]
• [Swanson Foods Home page]
• [Gerry Thomas - Associated Press obituary, published on Yahoo 20 July 2005]
• [Gerry Thomas - Reuters obituary, published 20 July 2005]
• [Gerry Thomas - BBC News obituary, published 21 July 2005]
• [Gerry Thomas - New York Daily News obituary, published 21 July 2005]

 

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