Correction: This post and headline have been updated to reflect a product description change.
Dive Brief:
- Campbell Soup Co. is producing a new recipe for a limited-time edition of its chicken noodle soup that features Chewbacca and other characters from the upcoming "Star Wars" film. The new recipe will also be featured in Frozen Shaped Pasta with Chicken in Chicken Broth.
- The new recipe contains 20 ingredients as opposed to the 30 used in the previous recipe, which is in line with Campbell's initiative to make its products appeal more to health-conscious consumers. Ingredients removed include monosodium glutamate (MSG), cornstarch, maltodextrin, and vegetable oil.
- This health initiative is one component of Campbell's plan to turn around falling sales, particularly in the canned soup category. Campbell has also made efforts in marketing, like its "real" families campaign, and acquisitions, like Garden Fresh.
Dive Insight:
Changing the recipe of a signature food or beverage product is risky, but several companies have chosen to do so to adapt to the consumer health trend and other changing preferences. PepsiCo released its reformulated Diet Pepsi with sucralose replacing aspartame, but so far, consumers' reactions haven't been positive.
General Mills is making Lucky Charms a gluten-free option, and Trix will no longer use the artificial colors that produced some of the brightly colored cereal pieces the brand was known for.
"It’s a delicate balance because these products are beloved," Charles Vila, vice president for consumer and customer insights at Campbell, told The New York Times. "Their profile has become very defined in the consumer mind over the years, so any change we make is very carefully considered."
"It took two months of intense work to come up with the balance of ingredients that would produce a broth and noodles that tasted the same or better than the soup that had been produced the same way since 2011, when Campbell’s adjusted the spices and reduced the beta carotene used to impart color," The New York Times reported.
The changes made to this most recent iteration of Campbell's chicken noodle soup is more than just shaking up ingredients. It's about cost as well, which can be prohibitive to reformulating a product to appease health-conscious consumers. Campbell may make changes to shipping cases and labels to offset some of these costs. Campbell Soup accounted for nearly three-quarters of the $1.6 billion in U.S. condensed soup sales in 2014, but the brand's unit sales saw a more than 5% decline, according to IRI.