Health

Campbell’s Is Messing With Chicken Noodle Soup [Updated]

Now practically homemade. Photo: Campbell’s

After months of laggard soup sales, Campbell’s is giving in to the times and yanking most of the chemicals out of its chicken noodle soup. The soup will lose a third of its 30 ingredients, mostly changes to the broth, presumably in an effort to make the can’s nutrition-facts label read less like a science experiment.

This summer, after the industry-wide artificial-ingredient mass exodus, Campbell’s said it, too, was cutting out chemicals (by the year 2018), but removing soy lecithin and maltodextrin carries risk when the chicken-noodle flavor is “defined in the consumer mind over the years.” Campbell’s hopes to ease consumers in by using a bunch of ads to reinforce the idea that it’s actually a good thing for Americans to finally “know” what they’re eating in a can of Campbell’s.

For now, the new recipe can only be found in two kids’ varieties of chicken noodle (a Star Wars–themed can and a Frozen-themed can). It contains 20 ingredients that, by and large, “can be found in the average home kitchen.” Gone are additives like MSG, disodium guanylate, the vague “spice,” and vaguer-still “flavoring,” and in their place are dehydrated onions, dehydrated chicken broth, and water.

This post has been updated to show the soup’s recipe only changed for two kids’ varieties.

[NYT]

Campbell’s Makes Chicken Noodle Healthier