Most advances in food processing take rather small steps. This is also true of the changes in consumer’s eating habits. To properly evaluate our future, many avenues of direction of the food industry and of government must be explored.
A most interesting article on new products stated that over the last eighteen months, 3,258 new products were introduced by 852 different companies. The leader was Campbell Soup with 69 (about half of these from Pepperidge Farm), General Foods 55, Nestles 53, General Mills 47, Consolidated Foods 46, Dart and Kraft 45, and others in descending order.
Before you get too excited, let me tell you what some of these products were. At Campbell soup, some were frozen sandwiches: egg, cheese and Canadian bacon; chicken salad; omelet; turkey, ham and cheese; Reuben; and beef with brown sauce. That constituted six new items. General Foods’ Birds Eye Group had fifteen new items—broccoli and cauliflower; cauliflower and red peppers; broccoli, cauliflower and carrots; broccoli, com and red peppers; broccoli, green beans, pearl onions and peppers; broccoli florets, cauliflower florets; and on and on and on.