A terrifying sight is lurking in countless refrigerators right now: the annual mountain of leftover turkey. What seemed so delicious going into Thursday’s big dinner is now a big pain in the neck. What to do with that pile of cold poultry? Sure, there are the trusty perennials: turkey sandwiches, turkey hash, turkey noodle soup, turkey tetrazzini, and dozens of varieties of turkey casseroles that only appear this time of year.
If you’re struggling to figure out how to get rid of the leftovers (until the second holiday turkey blitzkrieg strikes on Christmas), consider yourself lucky. Because, 66 years ago, a national food company had the Mother of All Leftovers on its hands.
In the latter half of the 20th century, C.A. Swanson & Sons saw the coming demand for frozen foods. They turned their little Omaha, Nebraska-based business into a national food distributor. It began with selling frozen turkeys. By 1950, the company expanded to offer oven-ready chicken and turkey pot pies. Business was good.
Until Thanksgiving 1953. That’s when someone in the purchasing department made a mistake. A stupendously huge mistake. They ordered way too much turkey. When the holiday had come and gone, 260 tons of unsold frozen birds were sitting in 10 refrigerated railroad cars. Swanson had to do something, and they had to do it fast.
Salesman Gerry Thomas rolled into action. He’d been impressed the previous year when he saw how airlines served pre-prepared food to passengers during flights. (Yes, young people, there was once a time when a full meal came with your ticket rather than the tiny cup of soda and a bag containing three pretzels you’re handed today.)
Thomas ordered aluminum trays similar to ones the airlines used. He filled them with frozen turkey, cornbread dressing and gravy, peas, and sweet potatoes (with a dab of butter on top of both). Housewives popped it into the oven, baked for 25 minutes, and, voila!, dinner was ready. Each dinner sold for $0.98, about $9.60 today. Thomas believed busy Eisenhower-era moms would gladly pay for the convenience.
Then he added a stroke of pure genius. Thomas called the new product TV Dinners. Because of the name, for years, I mistakenly believed it was designed to be eaten on TV trays as 1950s families watched television during its golden age. Not true. TV was brand new and red hot just then. Thomas added “TV” simply to piggyback on its popularity. (Although Swanson and other companies noticed the obvious connection and quickly pounced on it.)
Fresh off the heels of one marketing disaster, would the company now be struck by another? Swanson prepared an initial order of 5,000 TV dinners, delivered them to grocery stores, and waited.
It wasn’t a long wait. The new creation sold out almost overnight. It was so popular, in fact, Swanson produced another batch of meals. And then another. By the end of 1954, 10 million units had been sold. Swanson dropped its lucrative butter and margarine line to focus strictly on frozen meals and poultry. It took some 4,000 employees working at 20 plants around the country to keep up with the demand.
TV dinners changed over the years and eventually evolved into the microwavable meals millions of us eat every day. You probably didn’t know we owe it all to 260 tons of leftover turkey.
Makes that foil-covered plate in your fridge seem kind of small, doesn’t it?
J. Mark Powell (@JMarkPowell) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner‘s Beltway Confidential blog. He’s vice president of communications at Ivory Tusk Consulting, a South Carolina-based agency. A former broadcast journalist and government communicator, his Holy Cow! History column is available at jmarkpowell.com.
