Political Calculations: The Price History of Campbell's Tomato Soup

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2025-01-09 06:00:06

There are very few long-running products with decades of history that are fundamentally the same as they were when they first introduced to the market. Campbell's Tomato Soup is one of them, with a history that stretches back to the final years of the nineteenth century.

2025 marks the 128th year in which Americans can go to a grocery store and buy a can of Campbell's condensed tomato soup. When the Campbell's Company (NYSE: CPB) first produced the product, it was revolutionary. John Dorrance's innovation of condensing soup, removing water while preserving the flavor, made it possible to produce, can, store, and ship much larger quantities of soup than ever before. Consumers only needed to pour the contents of the can into a pot on their stove and add water to transform it into their next meal.

Campbell's Condensed Tomato Soup quickly became the most popular of the first soups the company produced and shipped to grocery stores across the entire United States by train and truck. Today, it is Campbell's second-most popular soup, selling around 84 million cans a year and lagging only behind the company's equally iconic Chicken Noodle Soup, which was introduced in the 1930s.