Swanson

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Swanson Are two separate brands, that were owned by Campbell Soup Company until 1998.

• Swanson Broths and Can Poultry - owned by Campbell Soup Company.
• Swanson TV Dinners - Spun off and now owned by Pinnacle Foods

Swanson logo on TV dinners.

Swanson is a brand of TV dinners, broths, and canned poultry made for the North American market. The TV dinner business is currently owned by Pinnacle Foods, while the broth business is currently owned by the Campbell Soup Company. Current TV dinner products sold under the brand include Swanson's Classics TV dinners and pot pies, 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, 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 C. and W. 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 TV 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.

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

In a few 1980s and 1990s commercials for the TV dinner, the announcer was Mason Adams.

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 TV dinner business with several other brands, including the Vlasic brand of pickles, on March 30, 1998, to a new company called Vlasic Foods International, whose name was changed to Pinnacle Foods in 2001.

W. Clarke Swanson’s son, W. Clarke Swanson Jr., began his business career in banking and subsequently owned a radio broadcasting company, several cable television stations, a community newspaper company and a community bank before, in 1985, founding Swanson Vineyards in the Oakville region of the Napa Valley AVA. Today Swanson Vineyards is one of the most respected producers of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Grigio and is also known for its elaborately elegant tasting room, The Salon.

One of Carl A. Swanson's great-grandsons is the conservative pundit Tucker Carlson.^[1]

References

1. ^ David Harris, "Swanson Saga: End of a Dream", The New York Times, 9 September 1979

External links and references

• Official Website of Hungry-Man Frozen Dinners
• Swanson TV Dinner website
• Swanson Chunk Chicken website
• Swanson Family Vineyards website
• Swanson Broth website
• Pinnacle Foods Pinnacle Foods website]
• Hungry-Man TV Commercials featuring NFL players Jeremy Shockey, Warren Sapp and Clinton Portis
• 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'