Frozen Food

After more than thirty years as publisher of the trade journal Quick Frozen Foods, E. W. Williams, always the optimist and often the hyperbolist, described an American utopia of frozen dinners: “Where can a consumer buy its equivalent in a restaurant? It is economical, saves dishes and cooking. It is the perfect answer to modern living. Of course, not every one wants a frozen meal but I believe there are enough Americans who will sacrifice home cooking for convenience.” He added, however, “I also think there is room for a somewhat fancier meal in a slightly higher [price] bracket.” These comments appeared in 1970 in Williams’s book Frozen Foods. By that time, frozen foods had become a staple in the American diet. During his tenure as publisher of the journal, Williams saw sales of frozen foods climb from $150 million in 1940 to $7 billion three decades later. Retail sellers of frozen foods numbered in the hundreds in the mid-1930s. Fifteen years later, 200,000 stores were equipped with freezer cabinets. In 1928, during the infancy of the frozen food industry, 1 million pounds of fruits and vegetables were frozen. In 1946, a year during which supply exceeded demand, 860 million pounds of fruits and vegetables were in cold storage.