From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For people named Swanson, see Swanson (surname)

Swanson is a brand of frozen dinners, broths, and canned poultry. The frozen dinner business is currently owned by Pinnacle Foods, while the broth business is currently owned by the Campbell Soup Company. Current frozen dinner products sold under the brand include pot pies, Hungry-Man (large frozen dinners), and American Recipe TV Dinners, and the current broth lineup includes chicken broth and beef broth.

The brand is named after Carl A. Swanson, a Swedish immigrant who moved to Omaha, Nebraska, in 1896. Around the turn of the century, Swanson formed a partnership with John Hjerpe and Frank Ellison called the Jerpe (sic) Commission Company which was eventually incorporated in 1905. The company focused on butter production and poultry. In 1928, over a decade after Ellison's death had led to a two-partner company, Swanson bought out Hjerpe's interest.

A Swanson "Hungry-Man" TV dinner, consisting of chicken fingers, French fries, corn, and a brownie.

During World War II Jerpe was one of the largest suppliers of poultry and eggs to the military. After the war ended, Jerpe was renamed C.A. Swanson & Sons. After Carl Swanson's death in 1949, his sons Gilbert and Clarke took over the company. The brothers introduced a frozen chicken pot pie a year later. Then in 1952, Swanson & Sons introduced their TV brand frozen dinner, quickly selling 5,000 units in its first year. A year later the company had sold over 10,000,000 TV dinners. A year later, the company dropped its successful butter and margarine business to concentrate on a poultry-based line of canned and frozen products. In April 1955, Swanson's 4,000 employees and 20 plants were acquired by the Campbell Soup Company.

By the 1970s the Swanson's brand trailed other frozen dinner brands such as Stouffer's and Lean Cuisine. Campbell Soup spun-off Swanson's frozen dinner business with several other brands, including the Vlasic brand of pickles on March 30, 1998. The new company, Vlasic Foods International, quickly went bankrupt and was acquired in 2001 by Pinnacle Foods.

• Official website
• Pinnacle Foods (parent company of Swanson's frozen dinner business)
• Hungry-Man Sports Grill - Beer Battered Chicken @ Review the World
• Too much turkey led Swanson to invent TV Dinner, an October 2004 column from the Lincoln Journal Star
• Who “invented” the TV dinner?, from a website of the Library of Congress
• Daily Trouble: Vlasic Foods International, a July 1999 Motley Fool article
• Campbell spinoff to be named 'Vlasic Foods International'
• Swanson's broth