Origin of TV Dinners
Posted
Thu, 07/21/05
Foody headline:
Inventor of TV Dinner
Dies at 83
(PDF, 105 KB)
According to MSNBC:
A retired marketing executive of Swanson, now a unit of Pinnacle Foods Corporation, Gerry Thomas recalled that his innovation arose as a solution to the company's post-Thanksgiving surplus inventory of turkeys in the 1950s. The idea of packaging the surplus as an entree for a frozen meal dawned on Thomas, then 30, during a business trip to Pittsburgh, where he saw a box of single-compartment metal trays that were being tested by an airline as a way of serving heated meals. Thomas coined the term "TV Dinner" as a marketing gimmick aimed at tapping into public excitement over the then-new broadcast medium.
The short article is worth a read.
Tags: TV Dinners
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