10 Facts About Swanson

Swanson is a brand of TV dinners, broths, and canned poultry made for the North American and Hong Kong markets.

The former "Swanson Company" was founded in Omaha, Nebraska, where it developed improvements of the frozen dinner.

Carl A Swanson was a Swedish immigrant who worked on a farm in Blair, Nebraska, until he moved to Omaha.

Carl Swanson died in 1949, and his sons Gilbert C and W Clarke took over the company.

Swanson packed the food in aluminum trays which could be heated in a conventional oven.

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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 entrees.

Swanson discontinued its successful butter and margarine business to concentrate on a poultry-based line of canned and frozen products.

The majority of its run, Swanson sponsored the game show, The Name's the Same, with Robert Q Lewis, alternating sponsorship with the Bendix Home Appliance division of Avco, and then Johnson's Wax.

Swanson eventually introduced a new line of frozen dinners called "Le Menu" in the 1980s which featured more sophisticated menus on undivided plastic microwavable plates with lids.