WHO INVENTED TV DINNERS? The evolution of the product began in 1941 when Maxson Food Systems Inc. produced the first ready to eat frozen meal. These dinners were called “Strato-Plates,” which were complete meals to be reheated and served to both civilian and military airline passengers. They consisted of meat, a potato and a vegetable, served on a plastic plate with three dividers. Unfortunately, because of financial setbacks coupled with the death of the company’s founder, Maxson’s frozen meals never made it to the grocer’s shelves. Many believe that this product therefore doesn’t qualify as a true TV dinner as it was only available on airplanes, and was never available to the general public via retail sale. Next up, in the late 1940s, Jack Fisher founded a company called FridgiDinners, that sold its “just reheat” wares to bars and taverns. This, of course, means it has the same problem as Maxson, if you want to be a stickler about the “TV” part of the equation. Albert and Meyer Bernstein co-founded Frozen Dinners Inc. in 1949, and that’s when things really began to happen. They sold their aluminum dinner trays with three compartments in the Pittsburgh area, and by 1950 had manufactured an impressive 400,000 dinners. Their product continued to grow in popularity, and in 1952 the Bernstein brothers organized the Quaker State Food Corporation, expanding their sales area east. By 1954, their new company had sold over 2.5 million frozen dinners, presumably some of which were eaten while people watched TV, though at this point it certainly wasn’t the focus. After the Bernstein’s Frozen Dinners began selling like hot-cakes, Swanson, already a well-known brand that consumers trusted, got in on the action. As to why Swanson so often gets the credit for the first TV dinners, despite the earlier examples of similar frozen food items, they based their advertising campaign around the hottest trend of that year – the TV, with some claiming the inspiration came from the fact that the tray resembled TV’s at the time (though this is a huge stretch when you look at the original 3 compartment tray that had a triangle as the main compartment). More likely the name was simply thought up as part of a clever ad campaign and the design of the tray had nothing to do with it. Whatever the case, thanks to Swanson, “Frozen dinners” became “TV dinners” and the company sold more than 25 million of them that year alone, or $24.5 million worth, which is about a gross of $220 million today. - I FOUND OUT
Posted on: Fri, 23 Aug 2013 10:43:02 +0000
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