Business & Finance: Billion Sales

Into the extremely select circle of U. S. corporations whose annual sales total one billion dollars, Swift & Co. will this year probably move, having done nearly a billion dollars a year for many a year. But big, energetic Louis F. Swift,* who works all day at a stand-up desk, gets as profits for his company only a small slice (less than 2%) of his gross.

Last week, however, Swift & Co. an nounced new Swift products which well may add to the Swift family net profit. By means of a new quick-freezing process, fresh meats have been put on the market in the packaged and branded form long associated only with cured meats (ham, bacon). Thus the U. S. housewife may now telephone her butcher, order Swift pork chops, lamb chops, and pork tender loins, all neatly wrapped in parchment or cellophane, trimmed, ready to cook. Soon available will be sliced calf liver and beef liver, and packaged legs and shoulder of lamb. Eventually planned are frozen beef steaks, roasts, etc. Most extraordinary of all will be a forthcoming packaged lamb stew, consisting of small pieces of frozen lamb, ready for the stew-kettle.

Housewives who buy in the package in stead of off the carcass will be certain of cut, cleanliness and quality. And the manufacturer will have taken another step toward making the burden of salesman ship weigh even more lightly upon the retailing shoulder.