Before anyone could think about frozen TV dinners, refrigeration and home refrigerators needed to be invented. And, that happened over a century earlier. In 1805, American inventor Oliver Evans created the first refrigerator design. However, it took decades to create the first practical, functioning refrigeration unit. Jacob Perkins created it in 1834. Then in 1913, American Fred Wolf invented the home refrigerator. 

A decade later in 1924, Clarence Birdseye developed a method to fast-freeze foods for longer-term storage. Birdseye was a pioneer in creating quick frozen foods. He went on to found Birdseye Food Company. Initially, he froze fish. Next, he successfully froze many vegetables and other foods. 

In 1953, Swanson employee Gerry Thomas had a brainstorm. He proposed to his company a new frozen entree. It was a complete meal in an aluminum tray ready to cook in the oven and eat. In 1954, C.A. Swanson & Sons marketed TV Dinners. The timing was right, and they were an instant success. However, they weren’t the first. In 1949, Albert and Meyer Bernstein founded Frozen Dinners, Inc. They marketed frozen entrees in the Pittsburgh market.

After overproducing turkey for Thanksgiving, Swanson used the extra turkey to make its first frozen TV dinners. The meal consisted of turkey, cornbread dressing, sweet potatoes, and peas. Swanson sold them for 98 cents.

Swan’s original sales estimate for 1954 was 5,000 units. Amazingly, actual sales far exceeded their forecast. They sold 10 million TV dinners in the first year!

Those first TV dinners used an aluminum tray. Today’s trays are made of microwaveable plastic.

The original TV dinners took 25 minutes in the oven to cook. Nowadays, it’s even faster in the microwave. Depending upon the dinner, it is ready in about ten minutes. Shorter microwave cooking time is perfect for our fast-paced lifestyle.