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Hey Campbell’s, Where’s the Beef?

The Campbell Soup Company was recently sued by a New York consumer who said she was misled by Campbell’s Chunky soup label “Beef with Country Vegetables” which has more vegetables than beef.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Campbell's Chunky Beef & Veg

The ingredients statement above shows that there is more water, carrots and potatoes in the can than beef. In fact, the entire 18.8 ounce can has 15 grams of protein, which is only about two ounces of beef!

One has to wonder if Campbell’s took lessons from The Three Stooges on how to make cheap soup?

By contrast, Progresso beef and vegetable soup, has beef as the primary solid ingredient after broth and water.

The consumer’s lawyer further argues that the product should be labeled “Vegetables and Beef” since vegetables predominate over beef. He may be thinking of label rules that require On-Cor, for example, to call the product below “gravy and turkey” because there is more gravy in it than turkey:
en-cor turkey
I don’t know if those rules apply here. The product in question is beef soup and it probably doesn’t even need to have pieces of beef in it.

I think the chances of this case succeeding are… m’m, m’m not good.

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7 thoughts on “Hey Campbell’s, Where’s the Beef?”

  1. Campbell’s has changed. It has been years since I found a piece of pork in their cans of pork and beans. It was, in the past, always included in each can. I wrote to Campbell’s and their polite response was they guaranteed that pork was always used (not their exact wording). Undoubtedly true but not in the past quantity. I believe their chicken noodle soup has degraded in flavor if not ingredients as well.

  2. I make my own, including ACTUAL chopped onions, “extracted” from my cutting board, sans that long list of unnecessary additives. Yeah, mine doesn’t require caramel color or soy either.

  3. I make a it a point to avoid to never eat something that contains a euphemistic pseudo-food, such as (in this case) “modified cornstarch product,” which somehow contains beef. Other examples are “cheese food” and “frozen confection dessert.”

  4. I wonder about entenmanns products how much they downsized since i was a kid, super cinnamon buns used to be 24 oz with real icing covering all the buns, the pack i saw recently was a lot smaller with 4 plops of so called icing on them

  5. These corporate shenanigans are the primary reason I’ve resorted to making my own. At least I know what goes into it, and can be assured of quality products and superior taste.

    Sure, it’s a bit more expensive, but you get what you pay for, since corporations focus on “shareholder value” rather than customers. Would rather avoid all the salt and strange chemicals for something a bit more tastier.

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