Banquet Foods

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Banquet Foods was a company that sold food products - primarily frozen chicken - and still exists as the brand name on many prepared chicken products sold by ConAgra Foods. Banquet was founded in 1966 through the merger of Bright Foods of Turlock, California, and FM Stamper of Moberly, Missouri. Soon after that, Banquet became popular with their Cooking Bags products. In 1970, the company was purchased by RCA, which in turn sold it to ConAgra in 1980.

Banquet is known primarily for a frozen breaded chicken, but expanded into other chicken products over the years, including chicken pot pies, chicken nuggets, ready-to-heat microwavable dinners and buffalo wings. In June 2001, ConAgra introduced Banquet Homestyle Bakes - ready to bake dinner kits in 11 varieties. The Banquet brand is also on Banquet Dessert Bakes - no-bake pie and cake mixes -- and on Banquet Crock-Pot Classics frozen meals.

[edit] Product incidents

On October 11, 2007, food manufacturer ConAgra asked stores to pull its Banquet and generic brand chicken and turkey pot pies due to 152 cases of salmonella poisoning in 31 states being linked to the consumption of ConAgra pot pies, with 20 people hospitalized. By October 12, a full recall was announced, affecting all varieties of frozen pot pies sold under the brands Banquet, Albertson’s, Cub Foods, Food Lion, Great Value, Hill Country Fare, Kirkwood, Kroger, Meijer, and Western Family. The recalled pot pies included all varieties in 7-oz. single-serving packages bearing the number P-9 or “Est. 1059” printed on the side of the package. ^[1]