The soup war heated up late last month when Campbell placed an ad in The New York Times claiming that its rival General Mills' Progresso soups are made with MSG. But General Mills isn't going down without a fight. Today it returned a punch by running an ad that makes a similar claim against Campbell.

The full-page ad for Progresso, also in The New York Times, refutes Campbell's assertion that its soups are made with TLC or "tender love and care" and all-natural ingredients, while Progresso's are made with MSG, a food ingredient known as monosodium glutamate. The ad reads in large red letters: "Campbell's has 95 soups made with MSG."

The ad follows Progresso's announcement today that it has removed the food additive from 26 of its soups. General Mills had originally planned on disclosing the strategy after the remaining 50 soups were reformulated to exclude MSG, but Campbell's ran the ad.

"Campbell fired the first shot and Progresso has responded with missiles," said Julia Beardwood, a principal at brand consultancy Beardwood & Co., New York.

To back up its claim, the Progresso ad shows what looks to be close to 95 soup cans—all lined up in several rows. The Campbell ad that ran three weeks ago showed a smaller, 19-oz. can of Progresso Traditional Chicken Noodle against a slightly taller can of Campbell's Select Harvest Chicken with Egg Noodle, in order to compare contents of the two soup brands.

"How did we do it? We went to store shelves, bought their soups, read their ingredient labels and added up the number of Campbell's soups that contain MSG and that was a big number," said General Mills rep Tom Forsythe.



Jack Trout, founder of Trout & Partners in Old Greenwich, Conn., linked both ads to the current recession: "Fluffy advertising is gone. These are tough times and what managers want to hear is: 'Show me how I can take business from my competitor,'" he said.

Similar to Campbell, General Mills uses marketing copy that plays up the healthiness of its soups. It reads: "Progresso has 26 delicious soups with no MSG. (And more to come.)" It also includes promises to consumers like: "And don't worry, we promise to keep the same great taste you've always loved."

Spending for Campbell's Select Harvest line, which launched last month, was not available. The company spent $50 million advertising its Select line in the U.S. in 2007, and $67 million through July of this year, excluding online, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus. General Mills spent $13 million advertising the Progresso Light line this year.

Unimpressed with the Progresso comeback, Campbell rep Anthony Sanzio said its MSG ad "obviously struck a chord with them." He added that the Progresso ad is making an "apples-to-oranges comparison" with the Campbell family of soups. "They don't like the way their Light soups stacked up to our Select Harvest soups, so they decided to create a distraction," Sanzio said.

So where does this leave the nation's two largest soup makers? Lynn Dornblaser, new products expert at Mintel, Chicago, said it's highly likely that Campbell will strike back, adding fuel to the fire.

"I wouldn't be surprised if Campbell comes back with an ad that says, 'We have this many [soups with MSG], but you have that many," Dornblaser said. "It's a little bit like sniping, but this is the time of the year that we do that with elections. It just really seems to fit in with the American zeitgeist at the moment."