Swanson Foods Introduces "HDTV Dinners"

[Whirled One]

Sorry; this story is a couple of weeks late...




04/01/2008

Swanson Foods Introduces "HDTV Dinners"

By ENO DELRI, H.W.


ALLENTOWN (A&P)

Swanson Foods (a division of Pinnacle Foods Group, LLC) recently announced the upcoming launch of their new "HDTV Dinner" line of pre-packaged frozen meals.

Dave Swan, president of Swanson frozen-food product development, was asked about the changes that consumers might expect to see with this new product line.

"Probably the first thing consumers will notice even before they open the box is the new "Wide-Tray" format to Swanson's packaging. Our internal research shows that the new wider tray makes it easier to reach the various compartments in the tray without accidentally mixing together the individual items. Over the years we've received a number of complaints from customers that they, for example, were ending up with corn kernels in the cranberry cobbler, and this new wide-format tray should prevent those sorts of cross-interference issues in the future.

"This new format has also made it easier for us to incorporate an exciting new feature to our product. Many of our new dinners will feature side items in removable compartments that can be interchanged with those from other Swanson dinners. These "Satellite Dishes", as we call them, will also be available separately, and these dishes can be interchanged with those supplied with the other Swanson dinners, or simply attached to the sides of the existing trays. This also allows us to provide foods that do not need to be heated with the rest of the dinner, such as our exciting new "Surround Salad".


Dave Swan was then asked about the potential compatibility issues between the new "HDTV Dinners" and Swanson's current and past offerings.

"We would like to assure our loyal customers that we are not abandoning them with these product changes. Customers that have an existing supply of "standard" Swanson TV Dinners may continue to heat and serve their remaining supply in the normal manner, just as before. However, we will also offer entree' "converter boxes" that provide the opportunity to try some of Swanson's new food choices at low cost, and which can be easily attached to our standard-format TV dinner trays.


"What other packaging or product changes can consumers expect?"

"For one, we've been increasingly concerned about some of the excess materials used in our packaging. Some of our competitors have switched to single-layer packages in which the product is displayed, stored, heated, and eaten all in the same package. Meanwhile, we at Swanson have continued packaging our frozen dinners in a heatable compartment tray that is contained within a completely separate outer box that serves no function once the compartment tray is removed.

"Rather than change over to a single-layer packaging design, however, we have elected to instead go the opposite direction, and make the outer box stronger and far more durable than ever. This improves the protection of the food inside from damage in storage and shipping, as well as allows for an improved appearance when displayed in a grocery store freezer compartment. However, just as importantly, we have designed this new outer box to make it very easily and readily adaptable and usable for a variety of everyday needs. We hope the improved reusability of our packaging will provide enough utility to our customers that the overall waste impact caused by frozen dinner packaging will be reduced considerably from current levels.

"We have even taken the effort to earn USPS approval for Swanson HDTV Dinner boxes for use as shipping cartons. The USPS has even offered the possibility of offering a special flat-rate mailing rate for anything shipped in one of these new Swanson HDTV Dinner packages. While we don't necessarily encourage the use of these packages in this so-called "letterbox format", we certainly appreciate the interest and are glad to do our part to reduce waste.

"The improved packaging also allows us to provide a much improved air-tight seal for our frozen dinners. For quite some time, one common complaint has been regarding freezer burn-- the formation of ice crystals in frozen foods. This "snow", as some customers call it, has often been associated with poor reception for our product. In the past, there was little we could do about TV Dinner "snow", but it is hoped that this improved air-tight vacuum-sealed packaging will essentially eliminate this problem in our new Swanson HDTV Dinners.

"Earlier, I mentioned the USPS approval for our new boxes. I'd like to bring this up again, as it does lead into an important point. One exciting new change we are developing at Swanson for our new HDTV Dinners is the potential for new delivery methods. Over the years, we've changed our basic packaging very little. The biggest change, in fact, was when we replaced our classic aluminum-foil trays with new paper-based trays. The new tray materials offered better compatibility with the electronic microwave ovens that were becoming popular with our customers. One thing remained the same, however, and that is that our product has always required freezer storage. It's true that customers could "time-shift" their Swanson meals by purchasing them at their leisure at the grocery store, and then heat-and-eat them at any later time they desired. However, during that interim period, their TV Dinners had to stay frozen, and therefore could not be transported long distances without proper storage. If you wanted to take your Swanson TV Dinner to the office to eat during lunch, you could only do that if there was a freezer accessible to you for storing your meal in the meantime. What we hope to eventually offer customers is the ability to truly "space-shift" their Swanson HDTV Dinner content. We are currently working on a project in cooperation with Hormel Foods on a new type of HDTV Dinner that can be stored safely at room temperature. Hormel has long offered a pre-packaged meal of this sort, but it has thus far been limited to small, poorly defined meals. Together we hope to improve this technology to offer our customers a true HDTV Dinner experience without the need for special storage. We haven't decided on a marketing name for these new products yet, but our current working name for the process is "DVR", which stands for "Dinner Virtual Refrigeration".

"Just last week, I made an informal test of the capabilities of one our new "DVR" product prototypes, to see if even a non-technical person could successfully transport a Swanson "DVR" meal without special training. I asked my Uncle Roy to pick up one of our new prototype meals from our plant, and then have his wife try to mail the meal to my home address. Since our Swanson HDTV dinner boxes are already USPS approved, I simply asked to have her mail it just as it was-- right in the box! Why not, right? Sure enough, a couple days later, there it was! I successfully received an HDTV Dinner via Aunt Enna.


Not all of the changes Swanson has made to their signature "TV Dinner" line have been successful. When asked about this, Dave Swan replied:

"It's true, over the past 50-plus years that Swanson has made TV Dinners, not all of our products have been as successful as we would have liked. The "Stereo TV Dinners" we offered briefly in the mid-1980's failed primarily due to a lack of research and development on our part. Rather than design a whole new product, we decided to try the half-hearted approach of simply packaging together two of our regular TV dinners in the same box. In retrospect, we should have introduced something more ambitious. The "Closed Captioned" ingredients labeling that we tried for a while in the 1990's actually caused a temporary decline in sales. It turned out that most people really didn't want to see the ingredients of our dinners spelled out for them in edible food-coloring inks on their microwave-heated sliced turkey and salisbury steak.

"Still, though, we've always been very proud of our TV Dinner products. Swanson TV Dinners have been "color compatible" from the very day they were introduced in 1954, even though the vast majority of our customers only owned black-and-white TV sets for years afterwards. Even radio owners with no TV always received solid value from our pre-packaged frozen dinners.

"In closing, I'd like to invite the American public to "Have Dinner TV" with Swanson!


Swanson Foods is not the only company introducing new convenience foods to reflect changing technologies. As just one example, the Campbell Soup company is reported to be almost ready to announce the introduction of their new "1080 Pea" soup.

[willyrover]

Our internal research shows that the new wider tray makes it easier to reach the various compartments in the tray without accidentally mixing together the individual items. Over the years we've received a number of complaints from customers that they, for example, were ending up with corn kernels in the cranberry cobbler, and this new wide-format tray should prevent those sorts of cross-interference issues in the future.

They CAN'T be serious...are they?

Wonder if it will also makes it easier to balance the tray on my beer gut.

[zenith2134]

Beer gut...rofl

This Swanson is some joker... good idea though

[caddisgeek]

Originally Posted by willyrover

They CAN'T be serious...are they?

Wonder if it will also makes it easier to balance the tray on my beer gut.

check the date

[zenithfan1]

Wide tray format?!! This world we live in is nuts!

[RetroHacker]

While this new wide format TV dinner is sure to become popular with the general population, there will be many who prefer the traditional Standard TV dinners. Remember, there are still many devoted followers of Swanson's "Big Color" line of dinners, the ones on the large round trays.

-Ian

[tboat4]

Mr. Swan conveniently forget to mention the High Definition Meal Indentation (HDMI) cables that one will need to strap the new wide tray with while in one's oven.

The cables are available in various kits, at additional cost.

[zenithfan1]

Originally Posted by RetroHacker

While this new wide format TV dinner is sure to become popular with the general population, there will be many who prefer the traditional Standard TV dinners. Remember, there are still many devoted followers of Swanson's "Big Color" line of dinners, the ones on the large round trays.

-Ian

Thanks for the laugh Ian! made my day! "Big Color" line of dinners, effin funny

[MRX37]

A bit late for April Fools...

[RetroHacker]

Originally Posted by MRX37

A bit late for April Fools...

Perhaps. But then again, it is still April. And there are still more than enough fools to go around...

-Ian

[vinyldavid]

Originally Posted by zenithfan1

Thanks for the laugh Ian! made my day! "Big Color" line of dinners, effin funny

+1

[mr_fixer]

Methinks that the press agent of Swanson foods Mr. Eno DELRI, H.W is a anagram for our own "whirled one"
A few days late for April 1, but a excellent parody of HD marketing. And i bet that Swanson foods thought about actually doing that, if even for only a few minutes! Logan

[wa2ise]

I just hope that these dinners have High Definition taste...

[zenith2134]

I, for one actually believed it.

[mr_fixer]

Originally Posted by wa2ise

I just hope that these dinners have High Definition taste...

Swanson H.ighly D.elicious T.V. dinners!
Egad! I'm thinking like a Marketing agency! Maybe because it's almost Supper time, Logan