Campbell’s crisis is not just about soup; it is about identity. The brand that once defined convenience is now chained to a product image many consumers associate with the past: salty, processed, and out of step with today’s health-focused expectations. Its costly acquisitions into fresher, cleaner categories were meant to rewrite the story, but the debt they created has limited the company’s ability to keep adapting at the speed the market now demands.
Whether Campbell’s survives in recognizable form will depend on how brutally honest it is willing to be about what no longer works. It must shed the comfort of nostalgia without abandoning the emotional trust it has earned over generations. If it can turn its name from a symbol of canned history into a promise of modern nourishment, it may yet avoid becoming a cautionary tale of a giant that refused to truly change.
