December 22, 2016
Campbell's Soup Company/Screenshot
Campbell's Soup Company has resurrected a 100-year-old original recipe.
At a time when the world is demanding simpler foods with fewer ingredients, companies like Campbell's Soup Company are forced to keep up.
One way up is back.
Case in point: Campbell's recent undertaking to resurrect an original 1915 beefsteak tomato soup recipe created 101 years ago by its former President John Dorrance and sealed away since.
"I've been with Campbell's for 32 years, and the day we were working on this, it was the best day for me with Campbell's," Campbell’s Director of Pilot Plant Operations Pete Imhoff said in a recent interview with Fortune on the undertaking.
The process, outlined in the Fortune piece, meant getting their hands on New Jersey tomatoes picked at their peak (these days, Campbell’s typically imports its tomatoes from California) and replicating outdated preparation processes that were done with outdated machinery.
That meant guesswork, improvisation and calling in some expert help, namely from a retired master chef who formerly worked with the company for 50 years.
The end product – 20,000 pounds of pure Jersey tomatoes from Wuillermin & Son Farms in Hammonton squeezed into 10,000 jars of soup to be served at Cracker Barrel locations in Pennsylvania and New Jersey in 2017.
“The liquid that makes the soup is entirely from beefsteak juices and pulp," Fortune notes.
