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For additional information see: TV Dinners, Who was First?

TV DINNERS

In 1954 C.A. Swanson & Sons  introduced the first TV dinner, it was roast turkey with stuffing and gravy, sweet potatoes and peas. It sold for 98 cents and came in an aluminum tray, so you could just open the box and heat the dinner in the oven. (No microwave ovens back then). 

     Supposedly executive Gerald Thomas came up with the idea when the company had tons of leftover turkey from Thanksgiving. The idea for the aluminum trays came from the trays used by airlines.

     They were an immediate success, and Turkey dinners are still the most popular Swanson frozen dinner. Swanson stopped calling them TV dinners in 1962.


Campbell Soup Company, owner of Swanson, replaced the aluminum trays of Swanson frozen dinners with plastic, microwavable trays in 1986