If you are looking for a healthier canned soup to serve your children, the Campbell Soup Company has changed the recipe for two of its kids’ chicken noodle soups. The two soups are Star Wars and Frozen Shaped Pasta with Chicken in Chicken Broth. The New York Times reports that the new version of the two soups contains 20 ingredients, down from 30 compared to soup sold last year in cans with the Avengers characters. Artificial ingredients like monosodium glutamate (MSG), potassium chloride, maltodextrin and disodium guanylate have been removed.
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A Campbell representative told Yahoo Health that its “traditional Chicken Noodle remains the same,” but the company plans to “take learnings from the change to the kids recipe and apply it to our other Chicken Noodle recipes over time.” The reason is that Campbell is “on a journey to transform the recipes of our products.”
"This is the first step in our journey and we are currently working on a number of our recipes, but it's too soon to give any definite timing on when changes may be made to the classic red & white chicken noodle soup," spokeswoman Anna Burr told NPR.
Campbell announced last summer that it will remove all artificial ingredients and preservatives from its soups by the end of 2018. Back in January, Campbell launched its Campbell’s Organic soup line, made with U.S. Department of Agriculture certified organic ingredients. Last summer, the company announced it would introduce three kid-friendly chicken noodle varieties in its Campbell’s Organic.
“The new kids’ soup recipes are part of our commitment to make products which are simpler and fit with changing consumer preferences,” the company stated in a press release. “This is something we first started talking about in July.”
“Today, we’re talking, thinking and acting differently about the food we make,” Campbell President and CEO Denise Morrison said in July. “We anticipate this approach will lead to, or accelerate, meaningful changes in our products, including replacing certain artificial ingredients.”
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Campbell joins a long list of companies that are removing artificial ingredients from their food products. The list includes packaged food companies Nestle USA and Kraft, and fast food chains such as Chipotle, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Panera Bread. A 2014 survey by Nielsen found that 42 percent of Americans cited the absence of artificial colors as being important in their purchasing decisions, and 41 percent cited artificial flavors.
Image via Campbells.com
