Swanson
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[[Image:Swanson Logo.jpg|right|thumb|Swanson logo on TV dinners.]]
'''Swanson''' is a brand of [[TV dinner]]s, [[broth]]s, and canned [[poultry]]. 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 pie]]s, and the current broth lineup includes chicken broth and beef broth. Hungry-Man (large TV dinners) are no longer branded as Swanson.
The brand is named after [[Carl A. Swanson]], a [[Swedish American|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 (businessman)|Frank Ellison]] called the [[Jerpe Commission Company|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.
[[Image:Swanson TV dinner.jpg|thumb|right||200px|A Swanson "Hungry-Man" TV dinner, consisting of [[chicken finger]]s, [[French fries]], corn, and a [[chocolate brownie|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 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]].
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 Pickles|Vlasic]] brand of pickles on [[March 30]], [[1998]] to a new company called [[Vlasic Foods International]], whose name has been changed to [[Pinnacle Foods]] in 2001.
One of Carl A. Swanson's great-grandsons is the conservative pundit [[Tucker Carlson]].<ref>David Harris, "Swanson Saga: End of a Dream", The New York Times, 9 September 1979</ref>
==References==
<references/>
== External links and references ==
* [http://www.hungry-man.com/ Official Website of Hungry-Man Frozen Dinners]
* [http://www.swansonmeals.com/ Swanson TV Dinner website]
* [http://www.swansonbroth.com/ Swanson Broth website]
* [http://www.pinnaclefoodscorp.com/ Pinnacle Foods] Pinnacle Foods website]
* [http://www.launchpad.tv/hungryman/ Hungry-Man TV Commercials featuring NFL players Jeremy Shockey, Warren Sapp and Clinton Portis]
* [http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2004/10/17/nebraska/doc4171fa1a899e2608908929.txt Too much turkey led Swanson to invent TV Dinner], an October 2004 column from the ''[[Lincoln Journal Star]]''
* [http://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech/mysteries/tvdinner.html Who “invented” the TV dinner?], from a website of the [[Library of Congress]]
* [http://www.fool.com/dtrouble/1999/dtrouble990716.htm Daily Trouble: Vlasic Foods International], a July 1999 [[Motley Fool]] article
*[http://www.shareholder.com/campbell/ReleaseDetail.cfm?ReleaseID=13691 Campbell spinoff to be named 'Vlasic Foods International']
[[Category:Campbell's brands]]
[[Category:Frozen food brands]]
[[Category:Pinnacle Foods brands]]