Image is everything when Progresso and Campbell's try to emphasize their ties to South Jersey freshness.
If this South Jersey-based battle were a movie, the film-rating website rottentomatoes.com would give it 100 percent and declare it "fresh."
Actually, this clash of the titan soup ladlers does involve movies -- 30-second ones -- as well as thousands of tons of tomatoes.
In one corner, Vineland's Progresso soup factory. In the other, Camden's Campbell Soup Co. headquarters. The referee: the Better Business Bureau, which just ruled on Campbell's claim that four national Progresso TV commercials touting Vineland as "Home of Progresso" are misleading because customers can think the processed soup's ingredients all come from bucolic fields in and around Vineland.
The BBB's National Advertising Bureau ruled mostly for Campbell's in what we'll call a split-pea decision. Progresso, an arm of giant General Mills, agreed to modify its ads, but said it was pleased that the agency upheld the central claim that Vineland IS the home of Progresso, where its products have been made for more than 70 years.
First, local residents had great pride this fall and winter when they turned on the TV anywhere in the nation and heard an announcer touting a positive image of Vineland. General Mills says the ads have run their course. If they do return next soup season, we hope they'll continue to feature Progresso's Vineland roots.
Now, for the harsh reality that our farmers have lived with for years: Campbell's no longer manufactures soup in Camden, and hasn't bought South Jersey-grown tomatoes in bulk for decades. The once-familiar sight of farm trucks loaded with beaming red specimens headed into Camden ended in 1979, when Campbell's began shipping tomato paste across the country. Ten years later, the Camden cannery closed.
So, Campbell's complaint that Progresso's ingredients are sourced elsewhere is a little suspect. If Campbell's thought its competitors ads were really untruthful and hurting its business, it would have sought action from the Federal Trade Commission, not a voluntary BBB ruling.
Minneapolis-based General Mills, for its part, doesn't exactly shout that it put Progresso under its corporate tent many years ago. If shoppers think an Italian Cumberland County grandma stirs the soup on her household stove, so be it. General Mills doesn't go out of its way to tell consumers that it owns oh-so-folksy, often organic brands like Annie's Homegrown Macaroni and Cheese and Cascadian Farm cereals, either.
So, while both companies engage in a little "greenwashing," we should be glad that Campbell's has maintained its white-collar workforce in Camden, and that Progresso still cooks its products in Vineland -- even if most components don't come from fields next to the plant.
This all points to the diverse economy that our region supports. It's local growers who have taken it on the chin from these manufacturers. Yet, agriculture remains healthy, too, since most of our former contract farmers have adapted quite nicely to fresh-market veggies.
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