| Product type | Food company |
|---|---|
| Owner | Campbell Soup Company (since 1915) |
| Country | United States |
| Introduced | 1880 |
| Discontinued | 2004 (pasta products) |
Franco-American is a brand name of the Campbell Soup Company. Founded by Alphonse Biardot as Franco-American Food Company, it sells gravy and condensed soups.
The company was founded as Franco-American Food Company by Alphonse Biardot, who immigrated to the United States from France in 1880. In 1886, he and his two sons opened a commercial kitchen in Jersey City, New Jersey, featuring the foods of his native country. The company proved a success, particularly with its line of canned soup and pasta, and it was acquired by Campbell's in 1915.
The Franco-American name was phased out over the next two decades for soup products and in the late 1990s for pasta products. However their product line was still sufficient to continue advertising well into the 1970s, with Barry Manilow performing their jingle "Who Can? Franco Ameri-Can". On November 18, 2004, Campbell's announced it was discontinuing the name for pasta products in favor of its own "to boost sales of what had been Franco-American's canned SpaghettiOs, RavioliOs, Macaroni and Cheese, and regular spaghetti, along with beef, chicken and turkey gravy varieties sold in cans and jars". [1]
As of 2023, the Campbell Soup Company continues to sell gravy under the Franco-American name, [2] along with a small line of condensed soups that are similar to soups sold under the Campbell's brand.
Their logo can still be found on the back of SpaghettiOs cans, next to the copyright.
The H. J. Heinz Company was an American food processing company headquartered at One PPG Place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company was founded by Henry J. Heinz in 1869. Heinz manufactures thousands of food products in plants on six continents, and markets these products in more than 200 countries and territories. The company claims to have 150 number-one or number-two brands worldwide. Heinz ranked first in ketchup in the US with a market share in excess of 50%; the Ore-Ida label held 46% of the frozen potato sector in 2003.
Chicken soup is a soup made from chicken, simmered in water, usually with various other ingredients. The classic chicken soup consists of a clear chicken broth, often with pieces of chicken or vegetables; common additions are pasta, noodles, dumplings, or grains such as rice and barley. Chicken soup has acquired the reputation of a folk remedy for colds and influenza, and in many countries is considered a comfort food.
Chef Boyardee is an American brand of canned pasta products sold internationally by Conagra Brands. The company was founded by Italian immigrant Ettore Boiardi in Milton, Pennsylvania, U.S., in 1928.
SpaghettiOs is an American brand of canned ring-shaped pasta in tomato sauce. It is marketed to parents as "less messy" than regular spaghetti. More than 150 million cans of SpaghettiOs are sold each year. They are sold in tomato sauce and with additions including meatballs, pieces of processed meat resembling hot dog slices, beef-filled ravioli, and calcium-fortified spaghetti.
Swanson is a brand of TV dinners, broths, and canned poultry made for the North American and Hong Kong markets. The former Swanson Company was founded in Omaha, Nebraska, where it developed improvements of the frozen dinner. The TV dinner business is currently owned by Conagra Brands, while the broth business is currently owned by the Campbell Soup Company. TV dinner products currently sold under the brand include Swanson's Classics TV dinners and pot pies, and the current broth lineup includes chicken broth and beef broth.
Ragú is an American brand of Italian-style sauces and condiments owned, in North America, by Mizkan, and in the United Kingdom and Ireland, by Symington's, a private-label food manufacturer.
Hunt's is the name of a brand of preserved tomato products owned by Conagra Brands. The company was founded in 1888, in Sebastopol, California, as the Hunt Bros. Fruit Packing Co., by Joseph and William Hunt. The brothers relocated to nearby Santa Rosa in 1890, and then to Hayward in 1895. This small canning operation grew rapidly, focused on canning the products of California's booming fruit and vegetable industries. By 1941, the plant shipped a hundred million cans of soup, fruits, vegetables, and juices annually.
Batchelors is a popular brand of predominantly dried food products. The Bachelors company was founded in 1895 in Sheffield, England by William Batchelor, initially specialising in canned vegetables. It released its first dried soup in 1949, and it started selling its convenience Cup-a-Soup range in 1972. The company now makes pasta and rice dishes like "Pasta 'n' Sauce" and "Super Rice" along with instant soup, in particular Cup-a-Soup and noodle products such as Super Noodles. The company is the UK market leader in dried soups.
Progresso, a brand of General Mills, is an American food company that produces canned soups, canned beans, broths, chili, and other food products.
Premier Foods plc is a British food manufacturer headquartered in St Albans, Hertfordshire. The group owns many well-known brands, including Mr Kipling, Ambrosia, Bird's Custard, Angel Delight, Homepride cooking sauces, Lyons, Sharwood's, Loyd Grossman sauces, Oxo, Bisto, Batchelors and Plantastic. Premier Foods also produce cakes under the Cadbury's name, using the brand under licence. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
Tomato soup is a soup with tomatoes as the primary ingredient. It can be served hot or cold, and may be made in a variety of ways. It may be smooth in texture, and there are also recipes that include chunks of tomato, cream, chicken or vegetable stock, vermicelli, chunks of other vegetables and meatballs. Many companies have their own versions of tomato soup which all vary in taste, portions and ingredients.
Borden, Inc., was an American producer of food and beverage products, consumer products, and industrial products. At one time, the company was the largest U.S. producer of dairy and pasta products. Its food division, Borden Foods, was based in Columbus, Ohio, and focused primarily on pasta and pasta sauces, bakery products, snacks, processed cheese, jams and jellies, and ice cream. It was best known for its Borden Ice Cream, Meadow Gold milk, Creamette pasta, and Borden Condensed Milk brands. Its consumer products and industrial segment marketed wallpaper, adhesives, plastics and resins. By 1993, sales of food products accounted for 67 percent of its revenue. It was also known for its Elmer's and Krazy Glue brands.
Alphabet pasta, also referred to as alfabeto and alphabetti spaghetti in the UK, is a pasta that has been mechanically cut or pressed into the letters of the alphabet. It is often served in an alphabet soup, sold in a can of condensed broth. Another variation, Alphagetti, consists of letter-shaped pasta in a marinara or spaghetti sauce.
Eagle Family Foods Group LLC, is an American food manufacturer based in Cleveland, Ohio. The company was established in 2015 by Paul Smucker Wagstaff after acquiring ownership of the Borden canned milk brands.
Princes Group is an international food and drink group involved in the manufacture, import and distribution of branded and customer own-brand products. Founded in 1880 and headquartered in the UK, since 1989 it has been owned by the Japanese conglomerate Mitsubishi Corporation.
Cream of mushroom soup is a simple type of soup where a basic roux is thinned with cream or milk and then mushrooms and/or mushroom broth are added. It is well known in North America as a common type of condensed canned soup. Cream of mushroom soup is often used as a base ingredient in casseroles and comfort foods. This use is similar to that of a mushroom-flavored gravy.
Campbell Soup Company, doing business as Campbell's, is an American company, most closely associated with its flagship canned soup products; however through mergers and acquisitions, it has grown to become one of the largest processed food companies in the United States with a wide variety of products under its flagship Campbell's brand as well as other brands including Pepperidge Farm, Snyder's of Hanover, V8, and Swanson. With its namesake brand Campbell's produces soups and other canned foods, baked goods, beverages, and snacks. It is headquartered in Camden, New Jersey.
Donald Edward Goerke was an American business executive and food developer. While working for the Franco-American division of the Campbell Soup Company in 1965, he invented SpaghettiOs, and was thereafter known as "The Daddy-O of SpaghettiOs."
International Home Foods (IHF) was an American manufacturer, distributor and marketer of food products, based in Parsippany, New Jersey. It was acquired in 2000 by ConAgra Foods and merged into ConAgra's Grocery Products division. IHF's best known brands were Chef Boyardee pasta products, Bumble Bee Seafood, PAM cooking spray, and Gulden's mustard.
The Fray Bentos food brand is associated with tinned processed meat products, originally corned beef and, latterly, meat pies. The brand has been sold in the United Kingdom, other European countries, and Australia. Created in the second half of the 19th century, the name is derived from the port of Fray Bentos in Uruguay where the products were originally processed and packaged until the 1960s. The brand is now owned in the UK by Baxters, which manufactures the product range in Scotland. Additionally, the Campbell Soup Company manufactures and sells Fray Bentos branded steak and kidney pies in Australia.