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A greater emphasis on easy-to-prepare, value-oriented recipes promises to heat up the canned condensed soup aisle this winter, retailers told SN."As the weather cools, soup gets a big boost. The consumer will begin to use soup in various recipes for casseroles and other main dishes," said Mike Shultz, senior vice president at Hughes Family Markets, Irwindale, Calif.Springdale, Ark.-based Harps Food

A greater emphasis on easy-to-prepare, value-oriented recipes promises to heat up the canned condensed soup aisle this winter, retailers told SN.

"As the weather cools, soup gets a big boost. The consumer will begin to use soup in various recipes for casseroles and other main dishes," said Mike Shultz, senior vice president at Hughes Family Markets, Irwindale, Calif.

Springdale, Ark.-based Harps Food Stores, which launched a Quick & Easy Menu Planner program of easy-to-prepare recipes this spring, plans to make condensed soup a cornerstone of its recipes during the cooler months, said Karen Ramsey, assistant advertising manager.

"We've been buying quite a bit of the canned condensed soups for this fall, and so there will probably be more of a push when we start getting our truckloads in the fall. I know we've gone heavy on the cream of mushroom and cream of chicken for meal preparations, because you can use them in just about every casserole and quick-fix idea," she said.

Ramsey said canned condensed soups are often included in her meal preparation lists that run in the weekly circular and feature simple recipes.

"When we run a recipe we back it up in the store with displays and shelf talkers," she said, noting that the addition of recipes in the weekly circular has really helped to spike sales of the featured ingredients.

Layne Lieberman-Anapol, director of nutrition at King Kullen Grocery Co., Westbury, N.Y., said she will be promoting the use of soup as an ingredient in recipes heavily this fall.

I use chicken broth in a lot of my recipes. It is a great product to use because it is so easy and it can be used as a base for sauces and it is economical," she said.

Citing Progresso Healthy Classics lentil soup that is made from nine all-natural ingredients, the organic Health Valley brand from Irwindale, Calif., and low-fat soups from American Marketing, Bloomfield, N.J., under the Pritikin label, Lieberman-Anapol said soup can be a very healthy food with a wide variety of applications.

"The instant soup cups like Fantastic Foods and Nile Spice can also be used as a base for a seasoning, for example," she said.

Vern Buford, director of grocery merchandising for Rice Food Markets, Houston, said his chain promotes soup for use in recipes during the fall and winter holidays.

"The other times we don't, because in Houston, Texas, during the holidays is around the coldest period we are going to get," he said, noting, however, that, "soup sells fairly well all year long. Ever since they came out with the slogan 'soup and a sandwich' it has helped to maintain the category."

Kevin Lowery, director of public information at Campbell Soup Co., Camden, N.J., said the nation's leading soup manufacturer, with a 79.1% share of the total canned soup market, and 88% of the condensed soups, will be extensively promoting the use of soups in recipes. To further spur sales, Campbell has created a new line of soups created specifically for use in recipes. (See sidebar.)

"During the Thanksgiving period, there are four cans of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup sold for every turkey in the supermarket. We are not going to forget the importance of cream of mushroom soup and will be placing a big emphasis on it later in the season," he said.

Lowery cited the popular "Holiday Classic Green Bean Bake," which uses cream of mushroom soup, green beans and French's French fried onions as its key ingredients, an example.

Along with being used in recipes, exciting new varieties, manufacturer-supported advertising and favorable pricing are instrumental in helping the category grow, retailers report.

"Soup sales are doing very well," said Nick Wedberg, vice president of sales and merchandising at Plumb's, Muskegon, Mich.

"Our instant soups sell well during the fall and winter months too," he added. "The onion soup mix sells well around the holidays. With Mrs. Grass we have shippers galore from Spartan Stores, our wholesaler, and we do very well with it."

Shultz said Hughes heavily promotes soups during its peak sales periods.

"We receive good manufacturer support during the peak soup times, which are late fall, winter and early spring. The main cooking holidays also fall during this period," he said. "Often we get point-of-sale material that we can utilize with the displays to give the consumer new ideas for using the product."

Retailers expect the introduction of new reduced-fat, low-fat and no-fat cream soups to help liven up the category.

According to Information Resources Inc., Chicago, for the 52-week period ended June 16, 1996, canned soups had supermarket sales of $2.330 billion, an increase of 2.1%. However, unit sales were 2.442 billion, a decline of 1.1%. During the same period dry soups/soup mixes had sales of $585.5 million, a decrease of 0.3%. However, unit sales climbed 3.3% to 1.342 million units.

Retailers told SN that manufacturer-supported advertising is key to growing the category.

"About two years ago, Campbell's had an Italian Tomato soup that was huge initially, and now it is discontinued. At first it just went great guns because they bombarded this market with recipes, whether that be with freestanding inserts or out in the magazines, or whatever. But after they stopped with the promos it died on the vine," said Wedberg of Plumb's.

He said Plumb's will occasionally print recipes generated from Spartan Stores in its ads, but doesn't do much in the way of cross-merchandising to promote soups as recipe ingredients.

"To promote soups we always tie in labels for education with Campbell's," Wedberg said, adding Plumb's also stocks Progresso and Healthy Choice brands and Spartan Stores' private-label soups that are manufactured by Heinz U.S.A., Pittsburgh.

Mark Polsky, senior vice president of Magruder, Rockville, Md., said he is looking forward to more in-store support for the soup category from the leading manufacturers.

"The manufacturers are promoting the use of soups as ingredients in recipes in magazine ads, and truly I think they are making a mistake. It should be supported in-store," he said.

Polsky said price increases from manufacturers have also played a role in denting sales growth.

"While sales are holding their own, in the last year or two prices have crept up a bit, and that makes it hard to get good multiples. Prices like three for $1.49 don't sound too good, and if it is priced too high the consumer doesn't buy the multiple," he said.