How the world’s first frozen ready meal came to be

Swanson thought it was a brilliant idea. The company designed a turkey dinner served in a small tray, packaged in a cardboard box, and then frozen. Each tray was divided into several compartments: one for the meat (initially turkey, later expanding to chicken, beef and fish) and another for vegetables and sauce. This was the world’s first frozen ready meal, and it was an instant success. Beyond convenience, the American public fell in love with the meal because of its name—the ‘TV dinner’—and its packaging, which mimicked a television screen. After all, in the early 1950s, the television was a trendy, modern novelty. A year later, C.A. Swanson & Sons had sold over 25 million TV dinners, and frozen food became a lifestyle for many families. Today, annual sales of frozen foods in US supermarkets exceed $5.9 billion. The trend is equally strong in the UK, where consumers happily devour 400,000 tonnes of ready meals every year.

Metal tins can now hold everything from soup to soda. Americans open more than 200 million cans every day. Fortunately, aluminium (a resource that is virtually inexhaustible) drink cans are quick and easy to recycle—an old can can become a new one on a supermarket shelf in less than 60 days. In theory, this means a shopper might buy the same piece of aluminium six times a year. Very few foods cannot be canned; in some cases, canned food may even be healthier. Canned tomatoes contain higher levels of lycopene—a powerful antioxidant—than fresh ones.

While war may have spurred the birth of sealed glass jars and tinplate cans, war may also cause their demise. Retort pouches, developed by Netic, are being adopted by more and more food companies; an increasing number of products on supermarket shelves are now packaged in these pouches, including those previously found in tins or glass jars. From canned luncheon meat, tuna and smoked salmon to cooked rice and various ready meals, all are now housed in this lightweight new packaging. These pouches are typically sealed on three sides with a wide, flat bottom that allows them to stand upright, and some feature resealable zips. Like military-grade pouches, they consist of an inner layer for food contact, an outer layer made of nylon or polyester (which can be printed on), and a middle layer of aluminium foil (to block oxygen and water). Crucially, aluminium can be replaced with a new type of barrier film, making the food visible and—perhaps more importantly, as consumers lean further towards convenience—microwaveable. Retort pouches are not only lightweight and easier to open, but they also offer the most critical advantage for the food industry: they take up less space, reducing shelf-rental costs.

Consequently, tomatoes may be the first food to leave the tin. Tetra Pak, the Swedish packaging company that helped the Rausing family become some of the world’s richest, has now begun providing Sainsbury’s, the UK supermarket chain, with tomatoes in ‘Tetra Recart’ cartons. Tetra Recart is a rectangular carton using technology similar to retort pouches. After heating and sealing, the food inside can be preserved for 6 to 18 months. Additionally, the company points out that flexible packaging prevents British fingers from being cut by tins—a situation that, according to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, happens more than 2,000 times a year.

III. Modified Atmosphere Packaging

In the early spring of 2005, Spain suffered a severe frost, leaving it unable to supply salad vegetables to UK supermarkets. With yields damaged, Spanish exporters could not fulfil lettuce orders, and prices soared by approximately 80%. Suddenly, food that usually travelled across Europe by truck to the UK had to be flown in from the US West Coast. Airlines unexpectedly found themselves beneficiaries of a lettuce import boom. As global food supplies become more tightly linked, the weather in a distant country becomes a matter of close concern for supermarket managers and transport agents. In the world of ‘global perishables’, a frost in one country can lead to planes filled with lettuce in another.

Beyond maintaining a steady stream of fruit and vegetable shipments, airlines have found new revenue through an increasingly popular food category: ‘fresh-cut’. Fresh-cut produce consists of fruits and vegetables that have been peeled, cleaned, sliced or diced and placed in small, sealed plastic containers, ready to eat. Initially, fresh-cut meant bagged, washed and chopped lettuce. Now, there are pineapple chunks, apple slices, or mixed vegetables known as ‘Asian stir-fry packs’, catering to the consumer’s demand for convenience.

Of course, for some, chopping vegetables is part of the joy of cooking and eating. However, food suppliers can see from the demand that there are enough ‘lazy’ consumers among home cooks to justify the extra cost of this new food format. The time taken to prepare a meal is also shrinking. Today, most people spend about half an hour preparing their meals. It is estimated that by 2030, the ideal prep time will be 5 to 15 minutes. With peeled and chopped fruit and vegetables, such a timeframe is clearly achievable.

Preserving fresh-cut produce is a major challenge, as fruits like apples and pears brown quickly once sliced. Modified Atmosphere Packaging (MAP) is often used for pre-cut bagged salads; this involves injecting nitrogen or carbon dioxide into the container to reduce the oxygen level, slowing the growth of unwanted microorganisms and preventing browning and wilting. Strawberries in MAP packaging can last for two weeks after picking. New ideas are also being explored. US scientist Olusola Lamikanra has been researching how to ‘trick’ the sensory system of plants. He discovered that cutting fruits and vegetables while they are submerged in water creates a barrier that prevents the physiological and biochemical changes that occur when a plant is injured—changes that trigger decay. Breathable plastic films are also being developed, using a laser scoring system to select films with different permeability levels to suit different food requirements. For example, if too much carbon dioxide accumulates inside a flexible pouch of canned pineapple, it could explode.

Whether such packaging is healthy, whether it alters the taste, or how the quality fares is another matter entirely. There is evidence suggesting that MAP packaging can destroy important nutrients in food. Regardless, fruits and vegetables taken from these plastic packages simply do not taste as good as those picked on the day.

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—Excerpt from the introduction to *The Moving Feast: An Extraordinary Journey of Food*