Soup season is just around the corner

Soup season is just around the corner

Auckland, 7 March 2018. As summer draws to a close, soup season is just around the corner. But as Kiwis prepare to eat their way through more than 7.8 tonnes of the stuff, Canstar Blue asks consumers what they like about their consommé.

Whether it’s memories of Nan’s chicken soup to cure the snuffles or a rich broth to fend off the winter blues, most of us have fond memories of soup. Unfortunately, in our time-poor society, many of us don’t have the time to make it.

“Three out of five Kiwis think of soup as a winter food but sadly nearly one third of people say they don’t have the time to make their own.” Says Canstar Blue’s Emma Quantrill. “But in recent years fresh soups from the chiller have become increasingly popular and seem to be filling the gap.”

The steady rise in fresh soup sales – around four percent per year – may be reflective of our liking of it over canned soup. 54% of the people Canstar spoke to, said they preferred ready-to-eat fresh soup over the canned variety, and 22% went as far as to say they eat more soup as a result of it now being available from the chiller.

Quantrill concluded:

“Our food preferences and habits have changed over the years and overall, we now tend to have a much stronger focus on eating healthy food. For many, fresh soup hits the spot for both nutritional value and convenience.”

Soup Facts

· The famous red and white soup cans immortalize by Andy Warhol in 1962, were not the original labels used by Campbells. The now iconic cans were originally orange and blue.

· The world’s most expensive soup is generally thought to be served at the exclusive Talon Club in Las Vegas. If you fancy a bowl, it’ll set you back an astonishing $688 USD ($940NZD).

· The earliest soup dates back to around 600BC and was thought to be hippopotamus soup.

· It was said the US President Richard Nixon would not have soup on the menu of any banquet he attended as he always used to spill it on himself.

· Using a tin of condensed tomato soup, a restaurant owner from Glasgow claims to be the ‘inventor’ of the famed Indian restaurant dish Chicken Tikka Masala. He says that to appeased the British desire for all food to come with a gravy or sauce, he mixed the soup with a few spices and yogurt to create the now popular dish.

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