Green Tomato Soup

 

As I was wondering the hallowed aisles of Wal*Mart this past week--while three of my children were pouring out their brain cells upon the multiple choice circles of woe--I happened upon these rather disconcerting greenish cans of tomato soup, from Campbell's.

It was hard to miss in a bin by itself, smack in the middle of a main grocery cart artery. I went ahead and bought 4, since they were 40% off the usual exorbitant price. I figured any remaining cost above my usual store brand purchase would be well compensated by the potential blog mileage.

In case you can't read the writing on the back of the can:

"Campbell's condensed soups have a proud history of environmentally friendly packaging.

By letting you add the water at home, we can make the cans smaller, which saves a lot of metal, and lighter, which saves fuel when bringing it to your local store shelf. All this is better for the environment and we're still able to pack all the great ingredients you love inside!"

So then, how much did it cost to change the label from the usual red to green and put the new wording on the back?

And while we're at it, the nifty pull tab opening on top leaves a ridge, making it quite difficult to get ALL the condensed soup out of the can. I think it even causes extra wear and tear on the rubber spatula I use.

Plus, we will never be able to calculate the emotional disappointment incurred by my kids when the soup came out red, instead of the green they'd been expecting.

But really now, the "proud history of environmentally friendly packaging" has more to do with them wanting to save money in production, rather than trying to save fuel used in shipping--though theoretically, that would ALSO save them money, except...when you make the can smaller, don't you just end up putting more cans into the truck??

Hmmmm?

Ah well. It reminds me of "Earth Hour," scheduled for several cities.

I'd wouldn't want to be the local utility when all those lights are switched back on at the same time, heh, heh.
 

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