Campbell's feeds the hungry, nourishes its image

Campbell's Soup is launching a new product called Nourish that has all the markings of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) superstar program.

An article in Wednesday's Toronto Star has the Executive Director of Food Banks Canada calling Campbell's "a good corporate citizen," saying "It is the first time in Canada that a food company operator has created a product thinking about Canadians who are struggling to put food on the table."

Nourish is a healthy, premium meal in a can containing a full serving of vegetables, grains and protein.  It will hit Canadian shelves later this year, but the first 100,000 cans will be donated to Canadian food banks to help feed the poor and needy.

This marks a profound shift for Campbell's which has built its reputation with tasty-but-wildly salty and not particularly nourishing soups. The company launched a low-sodium line a few years ago, but the new product is an innovative strategy to both build a reputation as a responsible company and help the hungry.

Nourish hits the corporate responsibility bulls eye on several fronts.

First, feeding people is linked to the company's core mission, which helps all stakeholders - everyone from executives to line workers to customers and investors to immediately understand that this is more than just a publicity stunt.  It may help with branding, but it's also the right thing to do.

CSR Programs that aren't linked to a company's core mission or strategies typically look a bit desperate and fall short of their goals.

Helping feed people is also something Campbell's can do well. Anyone who has ever donated to a food drive in Canada knows that Campbell's soups usually end up in the bag.

This is also a significant step up from a simple handout.  Campbell's is not only donating run-of-the-mill soup to charity, they met several times with Food Bank representatives for advice on designing a product that would be truly useful. The consultations resulted in a complete meal that would be attractive and sold to consumers, not just given to the poor, thus dispelling any potential stigma. It also represents a significant step up from typical food bank food, because, as Mark Childs, vice-president of marketing recently pointed out to The Star  “Access to healthy food is a right. That runs at the core of the DNA strand of the Campbell’s team.”

And to round out the campaign, Campbell's will be donating one can for each person who "likes" Nourish on the campany's Facebook or Twitter pages.

To quote Bob Willard from a talk last week in Ottawa:  "Frankly I could care less about motivations these days, but let's just get on with it, whatever works. We'll worry about motivations maybe later on when we've got more time, but right now we're kind of running out of time on some of these sustainability issues, so let's just clean up our act and get companies to do the right things - and goodness, if it's the way in which they can be more successful companies wouldn't that be fantastic." 

In Campbell's case, it's both.

Mr. Willard's full presentation can viewed here