TORONTO — Campbell’s iconic soup can was front and centre at the company’s 85th anniversary event held last night at Toronto’s Andy Warhol: Revisited exhibit, where Ana Dominguez, president of Campbell Company of Canada, spoke with media about the future of the company, its strategic focus and the launch of its new website.
“We have worked very hard to earn consumers’ trust and now we have to keep it,” Dominguez told the crowd. “We need to ensure that we continue to align our actions and our products with consumer needs in order to stay relevant.”
Similar to how Warhol’s paintings changed the art world, Dominguez said the evolving consumer landscape is changing how Campbell Company of Canada does business. “Consumers are changing — demographics, socioeconomics, family structures, tastes — and it all impacts how we do business today.”
While the digital age has changed how consumers get their information, share opinions and compare experiences, their eating patterns are changing, too. “They want fresher, less processed food, are more aware of ingredients and have higher expectations,” said Dominguez. “In response, we launched our global purpose: Real food that matters for life’s moments. This statement created a cultural change in our company — the way we look at our foods and at our interactions with our consumers — and it triggered actions to deliver against that promise.”
As a result, she said Campbell is taking a new step in its transparency journey towards increasing consumer trust. On the new whatsinmyfood.ca website launching next month, people will be able to access a wider range of information about Campbell products, including where ingredients are grown and sourced. “Through this platform we hope to engage in meaningful conversation with consumers and provide answers to their most pressing questions. This is a very serious commitment for us. We will be open and honest about what goes in our food, how we make our food and about the choices behind the ingredients we use. We believe this candid conversation with consumers will lead to a new relationship between our brand, our food and those consumers.”
But being successful and earning consumer trust is also about having a positive impact the community, she added. “In 2008 we launched Help Hunger Disappear, our hunger awareness and food drive campaign. Each year we donate over one million pounds of food to the Daily Bread Food Bank as well as funding local initiatives and store-level programs.”
Aside from the well-known Campbell’s soup products, brands under the Campbell umbrella include Goldfish, Pepperidge Farm, Plum Organics, V8, Prego, Swanson, Pace, Habitant, Bisto, Paxo and Garden Fresh Gourmet.
