1955 - Food And Drink

Food And Drink

Campbell Soup Co. enters the frozen foods business by acquiring control of C. A. Swanson & Sons, originator of the "TV Dinner" (see 1953). Campbell will expand the Swanson line of 11 prepared frozen items to 65 in the next 17 years.

Margaret Rudkin introduces a new line of Pepperidge Farm Cookies under names such as Bordeaux, Lido, Milano, and Orleans. The line will be expanded to include variations such as Hazelnut, Mint Milano, Double Chocolate Milano, Hazelnut Milano, Oatmeal-Raisin, and Shortbread (see Campbell, 1961).

Supermarkets account for 60 percent of U.S. grocery sales.

Special K breakfast food, introduced by Kellogg, is 4.4 percent sugar (see Sugar Frosted Flakes, 1952; Cocoa Krispies, 1958).

Coca-Cola Company uses the name "Coke" officially for the first time (see 1945; Minute Maid, 1960; Tab, 1963).

Tropicana's Anthony Rossi builds a port at Cape Canaveral, Fla. (see 1951). Unable to expand his fleet of trucks for shipping chilled orange juice to northern markets, Rossi buys an 8,000-ton ship with stainless steel tanks, builds a bottling plant at Whitestone, Queens, and begins sending juice north by ship, a practice he will later abandon in favor of rail and truck shipment.

Sausage maker Oscar F. Mayer dies at Chicago March 11 at age 95; Planter's Nut cofounder Mario Peruzzi at Wilkes-Barre, Pa., December 10 at age 80; Ralston-Purina cofounder William H. Danforth at St. Louis December 24 at age 85.