Soups and chowders represent a low-priced meal category that has an edge over other product categories during the recession and is becoming increasingly popular in restaurants.
According to MenuMine, a subscription-based menu information database from Chicago marketing consultancy Foodservice Research Institute, the incidence of soup menuing is up 22.5 percent since 2005. And 21.7 percent of all foodservice operators menu a seafood soup or chowder. The time is ripe for restaurants to capitalize on the variety of ready-to-eat soups on the market.
For retail, it’s not looking as positive. According to data from Nielsen Co., retail soup sales fell 6.7 percent for the 12 weeks that ended Jan. 23, and had dropped 3.3 percent for the 52-week period. A Los Angeles Times article that appeared on March 11 noted that soup sales for Campbell’s, General Mills and ConAgra Foods were down. Campbell’s launched a marketing campaign to highlight the affordability of condensed soups earlier this year.
“Soup can be a meal replacement, so it’s easy for a restaurant or grocery store to offer soup and maybe a sandwich or salad as a meal that’s heartier than, say, steak and chicken, which is more expensive,” says Todd Blount, president of Blount Fine Foods in Fall River, Mass.
To read the rest of the feature on seafood soups and chowders, click here. Written by SeaFood Business Contributing Editor Lauren Kramer, the story ran in the September issue of SeaFood Business magazine.
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