Mmm, Mmm Good? Campbell Soup's New Strategy: More Sodium

Good for Campbell.

Campbell Soup Company released a new strategic direction that will focus health and innovation, but includes reneging on a strategy to reduce salt in Feburary of this year according to comments and reports this week from the food manufactering giant. The company will expand on category platforms in its three core categories of simple meals, baked snacks and healthy beverages; consumer driven innovation in products and packaging as the primary driver of organic growth.

In February 2010, Campbell Soup announced that it would re-formulate over 60% of its condensed soups to reduce the sodium content of 23 of them up to 45%. With high salt diets having been previously linked to cardiovascular disease in medical studies, this is a huge win for the public.

Last week the company's CEO-elect, Denise Morrison, made another announcement that the company is putting the salt back in.

Morrison believes that lower salt levels have translated to lower taste for their customers, and that the tweaked offerings may have been responsible for the flagging financials. The company hopes to tempt soup-lovers back by increasing sodium levels up to about 650mg per serving (they had been brought down from 800mg to 480mg) in many of the cans in their Select Harvest line.

Don't want the salt? Don't buy the product.