What Happened to Swanson TV Dinners? The Tray Microwaves Locked Out

Swanson's TV dinner was killed by the tray it came on. The aluminum tray that reached grocers in December 1953 was built for the oven, and by 1987, 61 percent of American homes had a microwave it could not enter. The dinner came out of C.A. Swanson and Sons of Omaha, Nebraska, the company Carl Swanson started in 1899 with one wagon and one horse, later run by his sons Gilbert and Clarke. The tray was stamped from aluminum twelve thousandths of an inch thick and sold in a carton printed to look like a television set, for about 98 cents. Swanson planned a first run of about 5,000 dinners. By its own count it sold about 10 million in the first full year. The oldest detailed record is the trade magazine Modern Packaging, March 1954. It mentions no turkey surplus, credits the trays to a Los Angeles foil company, and quotes Clarke Swanson, not a salesman. On November 23, 2003, the Los Angeles Times took apart the 260 tons of turkey legend, checking its dates against federal climate records. The federal energy survey dates the real threat: microwave ownership rose from 8 percent of households in 1978 to 34 percent in 1984. Swanson did not leave aluminum until 1986, for plastic trays that cost nearly twice as much to make. Campbell bought Swanson in 1955. Pinnacle Foods took the frozen line in 2001 under a royalty-free license to the name, and Conagra bought Pinnacle in 2018. By most accounts Swanson dinners are no longer sold in American stores; Hungry-Man survives. One aluminum tray sits in the Smithsonian. If you remember that tray, tell us the year your house got its first microwave, and its brand. #swanson #americanmanufacturing #madeinusa