Yes, Gregg, canned soup is a great product, but it needs sexing up

The nation is in shock, Gregg Wallace has written a full-page article in The Sun detailing his outrage, and Andy Warhol is turning in his grave, apparently. No, this isn’t a reaction to the latest government policy. The outrage has been caused by canned soup sales, or rather lack of.

Canned soup has lost £28.7m over the past year, as first revealed in The Grocer’s Focus On Soup, with market leader Heinz taking the biggest hit.

Wallace is shocked by the news, proclaiming canned soups to be just as tasty, cheaper and more transportable than their chilled counterparts. He even went as far to say he would rather eat soup out of a tin than “out of a packet that looks like it should have blood in it”.

Before we get too caught up in a frenzy about the nation’s disregard for a “British staple”, particularly with Brexit looming, let’s take a step back and put this all in perspective.

First of all, canned soup isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Sure, canned has been hit but it still commands a healthy 55% of value sales and nearly three quarters of volume. Chilled, meanwhile, accounts for one fifth of the category.

Secondly, the nation’s concern is surely a good thing. Many of us have fond childhood memories of sitting down on a chilly winter’s night with a hot bowl of Heinz Cream of Tomato and a hunk of white bread. It is this passion, this nostalgia, that soup brands need to embrace.

Heinz is trying to tempt shoppers back with its £10.6m Love Soup campaign. It’s the millennials it needs to target: 53% of canned soup is bought by the over-55s compared with 41% of chilled.

As much as he’s overreacting, Wallace does make a good point – canned soup is nutritious and convenient. But, like the rest of the canned category, it’s seen as unsexy and a bit boring, and certainly not younger consumers’ first destination when they hit the supermarket.

There’s no silver bullet, and younger shoppers aren’t going to flood to the canned aisles because of one ad campaign or new flavour. But the recent stir should help heat things up again.