Swanson
 |
|
| Brand | |
| Founded | ~1899 |
| Headquarters |
Parsippany, New Jersey, U.S. Camden, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Products | Frozen food, Broth, |
| Parent |
Pinnacle Foods for Frozen Foods Campbell Soup Co. for Broth |
| Website |
Swanson TV Dinner website Swanson Broth website |
Swanson is a brand of TV dinners, broths, and canned poultry made for the North American market. The TV dinner business is currently owned by Pinnacle Foods, while the broth business is currently owned by the Campbell Soup Company. Current TV dinner products sold under the brand include Swanson's Classics TV dinners and pot pies, and the current broth lineup includes chicken broth and beef broth.
Carl A. Swanson (1879 – 1949) was a Swedish immigrant who worked on a farm in Blair, Nebraska, until he moved to Omaha. There, he worked in a grocery store where he came into contact with John O. Jerpe, who owned a small commission company, in which Swanson would become a partner in 1899. Initially, the Jerpe Commission Company purchased eggs and cream from local farmers. In turn, they processed the eggs, made butter from the cream, and sold these products to distributors and charged a commission to the farmers. With Swanson as a partner in the company, it began to expand. The Jerpe Commission Company began to sell chicken, turkey, and other meat. Swanson would eventually buy the company from Jerpe and rename it to C.A. Swanson and Sons, as his sons Gilbert and Clarke had joined the business.
The frozen food industry began to dramatically change surrounding the time of World War II. As men were required on the battlefield, women became more needed in the workforce. This limited the amount of available time women could spend preparing meals for their children. Women began to rely on TV dinners post-war for greater convenience, and to save time.
Carl Swanson died in 1949, and his sons Gilbert C. and W. Clarke took over the company. After the war ended, Jerpe was renamed C.A. Swanson & Sons. One year later, in 1950, the Swanson brothers initially began manufacturing frozen oven-ready chicken and turkey pot pies in aluminum trays. They branched into full meals after Swanson executive Gerry Thomas visited the distributor of a company that specialized in preparing food for airlines. The company packed the food in aluminum trays which could be heated in a convection oven. Thomas proposed this idea to the Swanson brothers, suggesting they create an aluminum tray with three compartments: one compartment for frozen turkey slices and the other two for side dishes. The Swanson Company's first frozen dinner was a turkey dinner; eventually, the company added chicken and beef entrées. With over half of American households owning televisions by the 1950s, the Swanson brothers called their frozen meals "TV dinners," suitable for eating on a folding tray in one's living room while watching television.
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Wikipedia