It's Amazing What Soup Can Do- Campbell Soup's Struggle With a Decline In Soup Sales

With sales down, many companies across the nation have been looking for ways to cut corners and lower their expenses. Unfortunately, one of the first cuts are labor costs. Companies who are not making their numbers often end up laying off employees, cutting back working hours, benefits and compensation. But there are still companies that are thinking of other ways to increase the bottom line without sacrificing their employees.

Campbell Soup Co. has been dealing with a 5% soup sale decline in the past quarter. In spite of that, they are reporting that their adjusted net earnings for the quarter have increased by $113 million. According to a recent report, the way they were able to make up the difference was by changing the way that they made soup. Previously, Campbell Soup was made with 10 different sizes of carrot chunks and 11 different sizes of potato chunks. They have reduced the amount to 3 for the carrots and just 2 different sizes of potato chunks. Even though the amount of vegetable in the soup is the same, they were able to increase productivity and expenses by making this change. I doubt that consumers will really even notice, and it doesn't make a difference in overall soup quality.

The soup company is also planning to start a new $100 million marketing campaign, “It's Amazing What Soup Can Do”. The campaign is scheduled to start this week, and hopefully, for its employees, it will add an increase in sales.

So, while It's Amazing What Soup Can Do, for the employees of the Camden business, it's amazing what thinking outside of the box can do to raise profits in spite of the weak economy. Other companies could learn something from Campbell Soup, and look for ways to improve productivity without letting employees go.

By Melissa Kennedy- Melissa is a 9 year blog veteran and a freelance writer, along with helping others find the job of their dreams, she enjoys computer geekery, raising a teenager, supporting her local library, writing about herself in the third person and working on her next novel.