Does that limit the company in terms of which trends to leverage in product development?
Griffiths: We don’t really think about that. It’s something we’re respectful of, but we’re so blue sky early on. Our biggest thing is finding authentic foods and authentic ingredients.
For instance, I’ve been learning about ingredients in Charleston the last few years and working with some of the Gullah Gullah chefs down there, and they have these short-grain rices that are really hard to find but are so delicious. It has a certain texture and a certain aroma and certain taste to it. I don’t know that we would get that rice ever into our portfolio, but my role is to find the authentic recipes and learn the gastronomy of the food and bring it here. It’s about inspiring and educating and helping our scientists and our product developers and our marketers so we develop this lexicon so we’re all on the same page for real food.
How does a big company like Campbell Soup articulate a trend like “culinary heritage"?
Griffiths: We’re getting involved with global markets ... we started with Korea and then Brazil and then Thai food and we’re starting to research Indian food. We’re always researching North American sub-regions … as we continue to learn about these areas it becomes so clear that there are so many young people who want to eat these authentic, flavorful, global foods, and that’s something our chefs are studying and learning not only how to find the ingredients but how to cook them.
What goes into Campbell Soup’s trend research?
Griffiths: We have chefs going to food shows, food trucks, malls, fast-food restaurants, and we’re constantly trying to find places that have a huge concentration of what’s edgy and new and just starting, and what the masses are looking for. That’s something our chefs really enjoy doing. We take treks to cities. We may go to Manhattan or Philadelphia and go to an area and try to find avocado toast and then try to find sweet potato toast, and then try to find beet lattes and turmeric lattes and areas where they’re making delicious authentic Japanese chocolates in Manhattan.
The chefs do a lot of research and study in Bon Appetit and magazines like that and major newspapers, just trying to learn about what people are eating. It’s what we do. It’s what we do in our off time. Most of us plan our vacations around this. Our vacation is what city has authentic food trucks and farmers markets? That’s where we go on vacation that year. It’s something we love to spend time looking into.
It sounds like a lot of work, but a lot of fun work.
Griffiths: It’s so fun. I could go to a farmer’s market… I would go to Union Market this summer in Manhattan or Smorgasburg in Brooklyn, and I could just walk around for hours talking to farmers from New York state or Connecticut who are growing carrots or potatoes and things. It’s fascinating, and it could help us have a competitive edge in the marketplace when we find a carrot that’s more delicious or a potato that’s more delicious possibly than the one we’re growing presently, and our farmers will grow them for us.
