Campbell Soup (NYSE:CPB) is going organic.
Campbell, world leader in soup production and one of America's top food firms, has announced plans to market an organic tomato juice, made without pesticides. The 46-ounce bottles will bear a suggested retail price of $2.69, compared to $1.99 for the same amount of regular Campbell tomato juice.
If the new juice is well received by consumers, we can expect more such products to follow from Campbell and probably other major food makers as well, such as Kraft (NYSE:KFT), Heinz (NYSE:HNZ), and General Mills (NYSE:GIS). Interested investors should keep an eye on developments in this realm.
Organic foods have slowly but surely made their way into the refrigerators and pantry shelves of America. Witness the phenomenal growth of such firms as Whole Foods Market (NASDAQ:WFMI) that focus on specialty items such as organic offerings, as well as privately held Trader Joe's, which is seeing more traffic these days in California, where major supermarkets are enduring labor strikes. (Whole Foods was a summer stock pick of Tom Gardner in the Motley Fool Stock Advisor newsletter. He sold the shares a few months ago after beating the market with them, citing valuation concerns.)
According to a Food Navigator article, more than 10% of Americans are eating organic foods, while more than half of us have tried them. Price remains a barrier for many, but as demand and supply grow, prices are likely to drop.
Learn more about Campbell Soup in this Take by Alyce Lomax and this one by LouAnn Lofton -- and learn more about Whole Foods here.
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