13 Popular Foods You Never Knew Were Owned By Conagra Brands

There's a good chance you've heard of food conglomerates like Nestlé, PepsiCo, or the Kraft Heinz Company. After all, the brand names themselves bring to mind popular beverages, snacks, and condiments. However, it's just as likely you might not be too familiar with Conagra Brands. Originally established in 1919, Conagra is an enduring influence on American food, connected to beloved brands that have been around for many years.

Even so, the Conagra name hasn't caught on with the American public in the same way as Pepsi or Kellogg's. This could be down to a few factors, such as the decision not to market the name nearly as much as the products themselves. Or it might just be the nature of competition, with some conglomerates destined to stand out in their own right at the expense of other impactful, but less talked about, rivals.

Conagra continues to benefit from the brands it owns, boasting an annual income of $12.3 billion. Here's a list of the company's most popular foods available for purchase, many of which you'll know, and at least a few of which just might surprise you.

Today, when you hear the name Duncan Hines, you will no doubt picture the iconic red box holding store-bought cake mix. However, what you may not know is that the product is named after a real-life traveling salesman looking to solve a very relatable problem. As NPR shares, Duncan Hines' work took him across the United States, and he was often desperate to find a clean restaurant with great food. Hines' meticulous notes, frequent kitchen inspections, and informal critiques culminated in the book "Adventures in Good Eating," published in 1936. In 1952, Hines partnered with Roy H. Park to form Hines-Park. Soon after, his name appeared on a variety of food items, including boxes of cake mix and tubs of icing.

Conagra successfully acquired the Duncan Hines brand in 2018, having purchased it in a cash-and-stock deal for Pinnacle Foods reportedly worth around $10.9 billion. It continues to be among Conagra's top products, thanks in part to a successful brand partnership with beloved country music legend Dolly Parton.

It's not easy to channel the flavor and feeling of homemade food, yet this is a feat that Marie Callender's is known for. The brand is named for a home baker who, in the 1940s, began humbly, selling her delicious pies straight from her kitchen. Marie Callender initially offered her baked goods to restaurants around Orange, California, with her son, Don, making deliveries using his bicycle.

When Callender launched her bakery business, she was said to be creating about 200 pies per day from scratch. In the following decades, the Callender family continued to expand, later opening coffee shops and full-service restaurants. Today, there are 27 Marie Callender's restaurants operating across the United States. Beyond the restaurant chain, Marie Callender's offers a variety of sweet and savory pies, all easily found in the frozen food section of thousands of supermarkets.

Conagra first purchased the right to sell certain Marie Callender's frozen pies in 1994, before fully acquiring the brand in 2011. According to Reuters, the deal was worth $57.5 million. At the time, Marie Callender's pies brought in $800 million annually, making the brand Conagra's second most valuable retail brand, and so the deal would easily be considered money well spent.

Many decades before Slim Jim would become a popular Conagra Brands acquisition, it was the brainchild of a teenage high school dropout, desperately trying to make a living at the onset of the Great Depression. In 1929, Adolph Levis quit high school to focus on selling condiments and bar snacks. Before long, he noticed his pepperoni sticks were very popular, selling out quickly. However, the sticks were too big and a bit messy.

By the 1940s, Levis would team with his brother-in-law, Joseph Cherry, to offer a leaner and less messy meat stick food that was a hit with bar patrons. The food would soon earn a mascot called "Slim Jim" and the name would stick. The food went from being offered in bars, to convenience stores, and later various grocery stores. The snack really took off when the brand partnered with WWE for commercials featuring the widely popular pro-wrestler "Macho Man" Randy Savage, who would say the famous catchphrase, "Snap into a Slim Jim!"

Conagra Brands got Slim Jim during it's multi-billion dollar purchase of Pinnacle Foods in 2018. It would prove excellent timing, as by that point, demand was strong enough to have one Ohio factory producing a billion Slim Jim meat sticks every year.

Vlasic brand pickles are easily recognizable thanks to their distinct blue-labeled jars and friendly cartoon stork mascot. Though the story of how the pickle snack product came to be might surprise most people. In the early 20th century, the Vlasic family made their living selling cheese, not pickles. Frank Vlasic and his family first moved to the United States in 1912 and eventually established a creamery business in Detroit, Michigan.

During World War II, the family took a chance on Polish pickles, offering them for sale in glass jars. The idea proved to be a massive success, and Vlasic's distinct "crunch" catapulted their pickle brand to #1 in the United States. The company also claims the popularity of its product influenced American snacking habits, with pickle consumption jumping from about two pounds per capita to eight pounds between 1933 and 1974.

It was in 1974 that the Vlasic Stork mascot first appeared in commercials, helping to further distinguish the brand from rivals. Vlasic was yet another highly popular food product over which Conagra Brands gained ownership during its 2018 Pinnacle Foods purchase.

As the name implies, Healthy Choice is a frozen food product that gives buyers the chance to enjoy delicious and convenient meals with fewer calories. The Healthy Choice brand was fully developed by Conagra after then CEO, Charles "Mike" Harper, suffered a heart attack in 1985. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, the harrowing moment not only forced Harper to change his eating habits. The change inspired the launch of Healthy Choice meals in 1989.

In the years since, Healthy Choice has developed meals suitable for a variety of meal plans, from low-carb to gluten-free. The frozen food brand continues to be among the top choice for Americans who want to maintain good eating habits and avoid excess calories. It's interesting to think that this in-house brand exists at Conagra due to one man taking a momentary health scare and turning it into an opportunity to not only improve his food choices, but positively influence many others for years to come.

For many Americans, Orville Redenbacher is the first name in popcorn, a brand forever associated with the buttery, salty snack, popped over the stove or in the microwave before being enjoyed while watching one's favorite show or movie. For those of a certain age, the name itself conjures the image of the brand maker himself and his easily recognized black-framed eyeglasses.

Orville Redenbacher first started developing his signature popcorn for supermarkets in 1944. The fluffy food stood out thanks to a 44:1 ratio of popped to unpopped corn, guaranteeing customers would get their money's worth when purchasing the snack. The brand reached household name status thanks to TV ads featuring Redenbacher and his grandson, Gary.

In the decades since, Orville Redenbacher continues to be among the top popcorn brands. A portion of flavor expansion and other changes happened under the watchful eye of parent company Conagra Brands, which successfully bought Orville Redenbacher in 1990 as part of the $1.3 billion Beatrice Co. acquisition.

If you've ever used a can of whipped cream to put the delicious finishing touch on your favorite pie or a cup of cocoa, it's a moment of enjoyment that you actually owe to the St. Louis inventor behind Reddi-Wip. Up until the late 1940s, if you wanted sweet dairy cream for coffee and desserts, you needed to have it delivered by the local milkman. Even then, getting a whipped cream consistency involved a whisk and a bit of hard work in the kitchen.

Then, in 1948, a man named Aaron "Bunny" Lapin invented a unique aerosol valve that lets you transform liquid cream into a fluffy, foam-like whipped topping. The product was initially distributed by St. Louis milkmen, but very soon became a national sensation, forever changing the way Americans enjoyed their desserts. One thing that has not changed is its name. Some people mistakenly refer to the creamy product as "Reddi Whip," potentially confusing it with "Cool Whip."

Conagra acquired the brand in the early 1990s. In 2017, the conglomerate made headlines after deciding to remove any artificial flavors and only use Grade A cream from cows that lacked the artificial growth hormone rBST. They also stepped up the freshness, stating that Reddi-Wip cream goes from "farm to can" in just around five days.

Swiss Miss is easily one of the most iconic hot cocoa brands around. Fans of a certain age may even remember when the light blue boxes featured an adorable little girl with blond pigtails. The story of Swiss Miss began in Wisconsin during the Korean War. Charles Sanna, owner of Sanna Dairies, created a special instant dry milk for soldiers, and the formula was initially in high demand. However, once the packets were no longer needed, Sanna's company was left with a massive surplus. In the early 1960s, he found the solution by transitioning the remaining packets into a unique hot cocoa blend called "Brown Swiss."

The product was initially sold wholesale to airlines and restaurants, and proved so popular that customers would steal extra packets to use at home. Sanna saw the potential and, in the early 1960s, developed Swiss Miss. That same decade, Sanna Dairies would be sold to Beatrice Foods, which would own the brand until its own acquisition by Conagra Brands in the 1990s. Over the years, Swiss Miss would change its mascot's image repeatedly, swapping out a hand-drawn image for Claymation imagery, before using the photo of a real girl. Later, Swiss Miss decided to remove its mascot altogether, settling on a simple drawing of mountain tops.

PAM cooking spray was a slick 1950s invention that helped home cooks add flavor to their pan-fried foods without the extra mess and calories. Before Arthur Meyerhoff came up with PAM, cooks would often use oil, butter, or margarine. They often had to deal with burnt food or excess scraping to remove any ingredients stuck to the pan. This cooking spray helped make food easier to slide onto the plate, allowed for easier clean-up, and also helped families eat healthier. 

Although PAM enjoyed initial popularity, the brand soon struggled due in part to a wave of low-cost imitators hitting the store shelves. As customers are constantly looking for a bargain, it only makes sense to choose the cheaper cooking spray. PAM fought back, launching an $11 million marketing campaign in English and Spanish that demonstrated how much better the product was compared to alternatives, a move that helped recover lost ground among shoppers.

As reported by the New York Times, Conagra Brands gained PAM in 2000 as part of a $1.6 billion deal for International Home Foods. While still a top cooking spray,  Conagra suffered a controversial setback when it was successfully sued over PAM in 2023. According to the Associated Press, a woman named Tammy Reese of Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, suffered severe burns while working in a social club kitchen after a can of PAM suddenly "exploded into a fireball," causing severe burns. A jury ultimately awarded her $7.1 million in damages.

Whether it be a bottle of ketchup or thick pastes packaged in cans bearing distinct red labels, Hunt's has made itself one of the top brands for high-quality tomato-based products. The company began in California in 1888. Brothers Joseph and William Hunt launched a modest preserving business in Santa Rosa; within two years, they would incorporate it as the Hunt Brothers Fruit Packing Company. Hunt's took a natural approach to how their tomatoes were prepared and packaged, preferring to pick them off the vine when ripe and to flash-steam tomatoes instead of using special chemicals. 

Hunt's joined a wave of food products that came under the Conagra Brands umbrella during a wave of acquisitions in the early 1990s. Since then, Conagra has stepped up brand innovation in an effort to keep up with competitors. In 2019, Conagra announced the introduction of new San Marzano Style tomatoes, a move that has since proved popular with customers.

In the brand's own words, Hebrew National has stuck to its 100% beef hot dog formula since its inception in 1905. Theodore Krainin, a Russian immigrant, founded the Hebrew National Kosher Sausage Company, which fulfilled an important role for Jewish customers. When it came to the meats that members of this community consumed, the food needed to be deemed "kosher," meaning it abided by a series of sacred dietary laws regarding what foods were okay to eat in accordance with cultural and religious guidelines. There were ongoing concerns with how meatpacking plants prepared food, and many beyond the Jewish community felt that both the treatment of workers and overall standards were worrying. 

The standards presented by Hebrew National allowed the company to earn a solid reputation for providing good-quality meat, and soon, both Jewish and non-Jewish customers came to prefer its food products. It joined the Conagra family of food products in 1993 with the purchase of National Foods, though, as recently as 2021, rumors persisted that Conagra might sell Hebrew National. At the time, it was thought the hot dog brand could be sold off for a sum of approximately $700 million.

Birds Eye isn't just an internationally famous frozen vegetable brand; it's a food that owes its existence to a curious inventor and a unique method of long-term food preservation. In the early 1900s, Clarence Birdseye was traveling through Northern Canada when he observed the Inuit using a combination of "ice, wind, and temperature" to rapidly freeze freshly caught fish. It was a process that would be dubbed flash freezing, and it was something Birdseye wished to apply to other types of food, namely, vegetables. He went to work developing a machine that could instantly freeze vegetables in a way that preserved their freshness and flavor, so that once thawed, they retained their nutrition, taste, and texture.

For food shoppers who didn't have access to farmers' markets or fresh produce, Birds Eye represented an easily accessible and affordable alternative. In fact, Birds Eye claims to have been a direct contributor to the existence of the freezer aisle in grocery stores. Birds Eye would be yet another globally recognized food brand that Conagra Brands claimed as part of the $10.9 billion purchase of Pinnacle Foods.

Banquet's story begins in Clifton Hill, Missouri, when, in 1892, a school teacher named Finis McClean Stamper started selling eggs and poultry to area merchants. What began as a second source of income soon evolved into a thriving business, with Stamper expanding his customer base into St. Louis and Kansas City. Eventually, he would found the F.M. Stamper Company. When producing food during World War II, the company would make a series of innovations that would contribute to the rise of the TV dinner. The Banquet brand itself debuted in 1953, when F.M. Stamper and Company introduced the pot pie meal. Since then, the company has released a range of frozen food products, ranging from macaroni and cheese to Salisbury steaks. 

Banquet would change ownership throughout the '60s and '70s. Conagra ultimately acquired the brand with its purchase of Pinnacle Foods in 2018. Since then, Conagra has stepped up production of various Banquet dishes, including chicken-based products as part of Banquet's "Mega Filets" line.