Pass The Salt

Campbell’s newly appointed CEO, Denise Morrison, announced recently that she had a new strategy to bring sales and taste back to their product. Her plan? Bump up the salt.

“For me it’s about stabilizing company sales first and then planning growth beyond that.” Morrison said at an annual investor meeting at the company's headquarters in Camden, New Jersey.

Morrison's plan is to continue selling the new sodium-pumped soups until they slowly begin to create healthier options again.

A few years back, Campbell’s took a huge leap of faith by cutting sodium by nearly half in most of their soup products. They also started a new line of healthier soups called Select Harvest projecting the new product was going to fly off the shelves. However, for those who sought for the salty taste rather than nutritional value, the sodium reduced soups bombed.

There is little doubt that people love salt. But there is also little doubt that too much salt is nasty to your health. A half cup serving of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup has 890mg of sodium. That’s almost half of the recommended daily intake of sodium per day. Consume the entire can, and you’ve ingested your recommended sodium for the entire day. Then consider that while the soup may be high in protein, it’s also high in cholesterol and contains ingredients that are controversial. So much for ‘M’m! M’m! Good’.