Campbell Soup Company
The Campbell Soup Company, headquartered in Camden, New Jersey, is a prominent U.S. food manufacturer known for its diverse range of food products. Established in 1869 by Joseph Campbell and Abraham Anderson, the company initially focused on canned goods before pioneering condensed soup, which became a staple in American cuisine. Today, Campbell's operates through five main segments: U.S. Simple Meals, Global Baking and Snacking, International Simple Meals and Beverages, U.S. Beverages, and Bolthouse and Foodservice. The company's product lineup includes well-known brands such as Campbell's Soups, Goldfish, and Pepperidge Farm.
In 2022, Campbell reported revenues of $8.3 billion and employed around 14,100 people globally. The company has been actively expanding its plant-based offerings and is committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 42% by 2030 compared to 2020 levels. Campbell has also been involved in various acquisitions to diversify its product portfolio, including the purchase of Bolthouse Farms and Snyder's-Lance. The company has a rich history of impactful advertising, including the iconic Campbell's Soup Kids and their connection to pop art, notably through Andy Warhol's famous works. As of early 2023, Campbell successfully adapted to market challenges, achieving a 12% increase in net sales amidst inflationary pressures.
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Campbell Soup Company
- Date Founded: 1869
- Industry: Food
- Corporate Headquarters: Camden, New Jersey
- Type: Public
The Campbell Soup Company is a US food company headquartered in Camden, New Jersey. The company manufactures and markets a diverse line of food products. The company’s operations are organized around five segments, including US Simple Meals, Global Baking and Snacking, International Simple Meals and Beverages, US Beverages, and Bolthouse and Foodservice.
Campbell provides a wide variety of brands, including Campbell’s Sauces, Campbell’s Soups, Goldfish, Plum Organics, SpaghettiOs, Prego, Swanson, V8, Pepperidge Farm, Royal Dansk, Pace, Garden Fresh Gourmet, and Bolthouse Farms.
The US Simple Meals segment includes US soups and US sauces. The US soup retail business offerings include Campbell’s condensed and ready-to-serve soups and Swanson broth and stocks. The U.S. sauces retail business product line includes Prego pasta sauce; Pace Mexican sauce; Campbell’s canned gravies, pasta, and beans; and Swanson canned poultry. Campbell’s Global Baking and Snacking segment markets Pepperidge Farm cookies and crackers as well as bakery and frozen products in Australia and Asia Pacific. The International Simple Meals and Beverages segment represents overseas operations, including simple meals and beverages in Europe and Latin America and also in the Asia Pacific region. This segment of the business also oversees the retail business in Canada. The Bolthouse and Foodservice segment markets soup, specialty entrées, beverage products, other prepared foods, and Pepperidge Farm products through a number of food service channels in the United States and Canada.
In 2024, the company reported a revenue of $9.64 billion and employed 14,500 employees. In the twenty-first century, Campbell increasing focused on sustainable initiatives.
History
Campbell was born in 1869 when Joseph Campbell, a fruit merchant, and Abraham Anderson, an icebox manufacturer, jointly set up the business. They called the concern the Joseph A. Campbell Preserve Company, which later came to be known as the Campbell Soup Company. Initially, it sold canned tomatoes, vegetables, jellies, soups, condiments, and mincemeat; the first ready-to-eat tomato soup was introduced in 1897, long after Joseph Campbell had retired.
Condensed soup was the brainchild of John T. Dorrance, a chemist at the company. Dorrance created five varieties of ready-to-eat soups, including tomato, which has gained something of an iconic status and continues to be one of the top-ten shelf-stable foods sold in US grocery stores. By 1911, Campbell’s soups, which had become immensely popular, were being sold all over the United States.
Growth at Campbell came about both due to the growth in sales of its product lines and also through acquisitions. In 1915, Campbell acquired the Franco-American Food Company, its first acquisition.
In 1961, Campbell acquired Pepperidge Farm, maker of dinner rolls, stuffing, oatmeal breads, and European-style cookies—as well as whole-wheat bread, which contained only natural ingredients.
The 1990s were a period of major acquisitions, notably the purchases of Arnott’s Limited of Australia, a large biscuit manufacturer; Pace Foods, a leading producer of Mexican sauces; Erasco Group, Germany’s leading canned soup company; Liebig, the leading wet soup brand in France; and Fortun Foods, makers of Stock Pot soup, a market leader in premium refrigerated soups.
In 2009, Campbell bought Ecce Panis, a premium-quality artisan bread maker. Then, in 2012, in a $1.55 billion deal for fresh foods and a line of juices, protein shakes, smoothies, and café beverages, it acquired Bolthouse Farms, a market leader in growing and distributing.
In 2013, Campbell acquired Plum Organics, a Taplow, UK-based maker of premium organic foods for children, toddlers, and babies. In the same year, Campbell also acquired the Kelsen Group, a maker of quality-baked snacks, including the Kjeldsens and Royal Dansk brands that are sold in eighty-five countries.
Campbell acquired the pretzel and chip company Snyder's-Lance, whose brands include Kettle Chips, Snyder's of Hanover, Cape Cod, and Pop Secret, for $4.9 billion in 2017. This was part of Campbell's plan to expand further into the fast-growing market for savory snacks while placing less focus on canned soup, as soup sales had declined. That year, they also acquired Pacific Foods of Oregon, a manufacturer of organic canned soups and other prepared meals. In 2019, the company sold its interests in the Kelsen Group.
The COVID-19 pandemic boosted the sales of soup and many other Campbell products, as customer stocked up on shelf-stable comfort foods. In April 2023, the world's largest tomato soup can sculpture was constructed outside the Campbell's Soup plant in Napoleon, Ohio. In March 2024, Campbell acquired food company Sovos Brands. This brought several well-known labels under the Campbell's name, including Rao's, Michael Angelo's, and noosa yoghurt. Campbell later sold noosa, as yogurt was not part of their market strategy.
Impact
Advertising has played a key role in the success of Campbell since the company’s beginnings. The Campbell Soup Kids were first featured in Campbell advertisements in 1905, and they became wildly popular with the public over the decades that followed. The Campbell Kids were drawn by Grace Drayton, a staff artist for the Philadelphia Press and Evening Journal. She drew as many as sixteen kids for the company.
Campbell was among the first companies to use people in advertising. Even as the advertisements evolved over time, the Campbell Kids continued to connect consumers with Campbell. Campbell Kids dolls and collectibles are very much in demand, and some are even valuable.
In 1962, artist Andy Warhol featured the image of a Campbell’s soup can in a series of pop art silkscreens that consisted of thirty-two canvases. The silkscreens have become iconic pieces of pop art; one in particular, Small Torn Campbell Soup Can (Pepper Pot) (1962), commanded a price of $11.8 million at an auction in 2006.
In March 2012, Campbell announced that it would begin to gradually phase out the use of the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) in its can linings. Groups that oppose the use of BPA in food packaging cite lab studies that seem to show that exposure to BPA in the linings of metal food cans had been linked to a number of health conditions, including type-2 diabetes. On January 7, 2016, Campbell Soup announced that it would "support mandatory national labeling of products that may contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs)." With this move, Campbell became the first major food company to back mandatory labeling for foods containing GMO ingredients. Like most of the food industry, Campbell had, for years prior to the announcement, opposed mandatory labeling of foods for GMOs.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, sales of Campbell’s products soared. However, post-pandemic, demand normalized, and the company looked to other sales tactics to stay profitable. Into the mid-2020s, the company has purchased new brands, focused on sustainability, and looked to provide healthier and organic brands. Campbell focused on acquiring premium and convenience brands as well. While the company struggled to reach pandemic heights, its $9.6 billion in sales in 2024 represented a 3 percent increase from the previous year. Still, like many other companies, Campbell struggled with the inflation of the early 2020s, especially in the food sector.
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