1份101年前的番茄汤食谱，帮助这个古老品牌重新定义自己

几乎所有的美国人都存有一些古老的家庭食谱，可以做出深受喜爱的家常美食。在金宝汤公司（Campbell Soup），这些食谱的来历或许能追溯到更早的一两代人。

在金宝汤的同名番茄浓汤、金鱼香脆饼、Prego意面酱的食谱档案之间，还隐藏着一份约翰·多伦斯博士1915年独创的牛排番茄汤食谱。在2016年，公司尽最大努力还原了这份拥有101年历史的食谱的做法，生产了1万罐这种汤。他们计划于2017年在宾夕法尼亚州和新泽西州的Cracker Barrel连锁店内小批量地限时售卖它。

《财富》造访了金宝汤公司位于新泽西州卡姆登的总部。提起这款番茄的烹制历程——从寻找新泽西的当地土豆，到研究食谱指代的“使用16号桶”的具体含义——公司员工充满了自豪。金宝汤试验工厂的运营主管皮特·伊姆霍夫表示：“我在金宝汤工作了32年，而研究这份食谱的那天，是我在金宝汤度过的最美好的一天。我感觉自己仿佛正跟着约翰·多伦斯博士的足迹前进。”

其他许多高管和团队成员对此表示同意：金宝汤不惜代价，重现这份封存数十年的食谱的做法，让他们感到欢欣鼓舞。回归过去的处事方式，在某种程度上也折射出食品和饮料业面临的挑战：如今的消费者想要享用更加干净简单、人工添加剂和色素更少的食物。每年销售8,500万罐西红柿浓汤的金宝汤表示，公司也在朝这个方向努力。

金宝汤美国分部的总裁马克·亚历山大表示：“回顾公司的历史和根源，我们发现了自身一些与消费者息息相关、而与其他食品公司不同的特质。”

一切始于多伦斯

1897年，约翰·多伦斯入职金宝汤公司。当时他的叔叔亚瑟招他进来，是因为家里想让他给侄子一些指导。小多伦斯接手的第一个项目是研究浓缩汤的做法，由于他有化学与数学的教育背景，很快就完成了这个任务。后来，他接任了叔叔亚瑟的岗位，担任了公司的总裁。

Almost all Americans have a few old family recipes on file to make beloved, home-made meals. At Campbell Soup, these recipes can go back a little further than a generation or two.

Tucked away in the archives of the company behind the namesake tomato soup, Goldfish crackers and Prego was Dr. John Dorrance’s original beefsteak tomato soup recipe from 1915. And this year, it made 10,000 jars by following the 101-year-old soup recipe as closely as it could. Plans are in place to sell a small batch line of soups in 2017 for a limited time in Cracker Barrel CBRL 1.01% locations in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The journey to create this line of soup—from finding local, New Jersey tomatoes to learning what measurement the recipe actually meant when it said to ‘use a #16 bucket’—was talked about with great pride when Fortune visited Campbell Soup’s CPB 0.49% Camden, N.J. headquarters. “I’ve been with Campbell’s for 32 years and the day we were working on this, it was the best day for me with Campbell’s,” said Pete Imhoff, director of pilot plant operations at Campbell. “I felt like I was walking in Dr. Dorrance’s footsteps.”

Many other executives and team members agreed: the investment Campbell made in resurfacing this recipe—which hadn’t been used in many decades—felt inspiring. A return to the old way of doing things in some way mirrors the challenges we see in the food and beverage industry today, as consumers demand cleaner and leaner foods with fewer artificial ingredients and colors. Campbell—which sells 85 million cans of tomato soup each year in the U.S.—says it is on that journey too.

“As we looked back and did some navel-gazing back into our history and our roots, we found things about ourselves that are super relevant to consumers and are different than what other food companies can offer,” said Mark Alexander, president of Campbell’s Americas division.

It all starts with Dorrance

John Dorrance was first employed by Campbell Soup in 1897, hired by his uncle Arthur as a family favor to give his nephew some direction. The younger Dorrance’s first project was to try to figure out how to make a condensed soup, a recipe he quickly solved with his educational background in chemistry and mathematics. He went on to serve as company president—succeeding his uncle Arthur in that role.

在他的影响下，金宝汤公司在已有的饼馅、番茄酱、芥末、沙拉酱等200余种不同产品之外，又推出了汤类。尽管现在的消费者一想到这家公司，脑海里最先浮现出的就是罐头浓汤，但金宝汤以前并不卖汤。如今的金宝汤浓汤已经成为了美国数百万间食品储藏室里的必备菜肴。不过与这种需要加水的浓缩汤不同，多伦斯的牛排番茄汤是即食的。

多伦斯这份1915年的食谱要求从当地采购原料，尤其是新泽西的番茄。而接下来的烹制过程，则体现了他在100年前扪心自问的食品的意义：“原料的品级是否达到了我们自己食用的标准？它们混合制造出的食物在色、香、味上能否有足够的吸引力？产品的价格能否让大部分人负担得起？”

解密过去

尽管这份食谱可以追溯到一百多年前，但金宝汤档案中能找到的最古老的烹制流程来自1925年。也就是说，他们必须根据当时流行的烹饪方式来做出合理的推测。公司寻求了一些退休员工的帮助，其中一位在公司工作近50年的退休主厨成为了关键的信息来源。他和其他人一起，帮助现在的团队搞清了原来烹饪指南中语焉不详的描述所对应的精确标准。

在这期间，金宝汤利用了现代手段来模仿曾经的蒸馏过程（公司过去使用的容器如今已经不存在了），也掌握了当时独有的核心烹饪手段。多伦斯的番茄汤中不加水，汤里的所有液体都来源于牛排里的汁水和番茄浆液。

尽管牛排番茄汤的原料和烹饪过程都严格遵循了1915年版菜谱的要求，不过金宝汤的团队还是做出了一个明显而必要的调整，他们大量减少了食盐的用量。公司研发团队的成员汤姆·赫尔塞尔表示：“汤实在太咸了，我觉得他们可能喜欢很咸的汤。”

Under his influence, Campbell began to add soup to a food lineup that already featured 200 different products, including pie fillings, ketchup, mustard and salad dressings. But Campbell didn’t sell soup—the product the company is most closely associated with in consumers’ minds today. Condensed soups sold by Campbell are of course a staple in millions of pantries across the country. But unlike condensed soup—which require the addition of water—the beefsteak tomato recipe is ready to serve.

Dorrance’s 1915 recipe called for locally sourced ingredients, specifically New Jersey tomatoes. And the process he followed was in line with some broader questions he asked himself over 100 years ago about what food meant to him: “Are the ingredients of a grade we would serve at our own table? Does the combination of them appeal to our own sight, smell and taste? Is the price within the reach of most pocketbooks?”

Deciphering the past

Though the recipe is over 100 years ago, the oldest procedure the Campbell archivists could find was from 1925. That meant they had to make some educated guesses along the way, based on cooking methods that were popular at the time. Campbell also had to ask retirees for some help—one critical resource was a retired master chef that had worked at the company for nearly 50 years. He and others were able to help the current team figure out exact measurements that were described vaguely in the original cooking instructions.

Along the way, Campbell came up with modern methods to mimic the historical distillation process (the tanks the company used back then don’t exist today) and also learned key cooking methods that were unique to the time. No water was added to Dorrance’s tomato soup formula. The liquid that makes the soup is entirely from beefsteak juices and pulp.

Though the beefsteak tomato recipe and cooking process closely follows the 1915 vision, there was one notable change that was needed. Campbell’s team had to significantly cut the amount of salt added to the soup. “It was very salty. I think that is just what they liked,” said Tom Helsel, a member of the company’s R&D team.

金宝汤还找了一些老朋友来供应当地出产的番茄。目前，公司的番茄都是从加利福尼亚州采购的，但多伦斯的食谱使用的是新泽西本地番茄，他们认真对待了这个要求。

伊姆霍夫表示：“我们希望通过这种做法表达对多伦斯博士的敬意，而且汤里最重要的原料就是番茄。我们感觉严格甄选食材是这次任务的重中之重。”

为了获得生产1万罐番茄汤所需的大约2万磅番茄，金宝汤找到了位于新泽西州哈蒙顿的第三代农场，这里种有三英亩番茄。碰巧，双方曾经做过生意。目前Wuillermin & Son Farms的农场主埃德和奥古斯特，曾经在年轻时帮过他们的祖父把番茄运到金宝汤位于卡姆登的生产基地。

为什么是现在？

金宝汤的总裁和首席执行官丹尼斯·莫里森在今年早些时候的行业会议上表示：“食品行业正在遭遇真正的变革。近70%的成年人在购买食品时会把是否新鲜当作重要的评判标准。”

在卡姆登面见金宝汤美国分部的负责人亚历山大时，他回应了上述评论。他说：“大型快餐食品公司的影响力正在减弱。这也促使我们反思：我们的公司究竟是什么，希望以怎样的姿态出现在世人面前。”

对几乎不含人工添加剂，更新鲜的“干净”食品的支持运动，解释了为什么超市边缘售卖的新鲜肉类、蔬菜和乳酪大受欢迎，而超市中央的加工型食品却销量惨淡。为了应对这种趋势，金宝汤这样的知名品牌和大型快餐食品厂商纷纷开始改造产品，让它们变得更简单、更益于人体健康。

Campbell also had to call some old friends to source the tomatoes locally. These days, Campbell sources almost all its tomatoes from California. But Dorrance’s recipe called for Jersey tomatoes, so Campbell took that seriously.

“We wanted to honor Dr. Dorrance in what we were attempting to do and the most important ingredient in the soup is the tomato,” Imhoff said. “We felt the most important work we had ahead of us was to do the due diligence on the sourcing.”

To get the roughly 20,000 pounds of tomatoes needed to make about 10,000 jars of soup, Campbell turned to a third-generation farm in Hammonton, N.J., which grows about three acres of the produce. Coincidentally, the parties had done business before. As teenagers, Ed and August—the current owners of Wuillermin & Son Farms—drove their grandfather’s tomatoes to Camden for production at Campbell’s plant.

Why now?

“The food industry is in the midst of a true revolution,” said Campbell Soup President and CEO Denise Morrison at an industry conference earlier this year. “Nearly 70% of adults indicate that fresh is an important attribute when buying food.”

When I met with Campbell’s top Americas executive in Camden, he echoed those comments. “The relevance of Big Food companies is in decline,” Alexander said. “That was a big catalyst for us in rethinking who we are and how we want to show up in this world.”

The movement toward fresher foods with “clean” labels mostly devoid of artificial ingredients explains why items on the perimeter of supermarkets—where fresh meats, vegetables and cheese are found—have been selling strongly while the center of the store filled with more processed goods is facing some sales woes. Established brands and Big Food makers like Campbell are responding by reinventing their products to make simple and better-for-you foods.

It also explains why Campbell at the beginning of the year created three new divisions, including Campbell Fresh—a business that generates over $1 billion annually from the sale of Bolthouse Farms, Garden Fresh Gourmet and the company’s U.S. refrigerated soup business. Campbell is making a bigger bet on fresh because, as Morrison explains it, consumers are demanding healthier, real foods with fewer artificial ingredients and minimal processing. But what does “real food” even mean?

Different things to different people, apparently. Jeff George, vice president of research and development of Campbell’s Americas division, told me for some it means no artificial ingredients. Others say it means local or organic. “People have different opinions about what ‘real food’ means to us, consumers, and at Campbell,” he explains.

Campbell has promised to become more real. The company has a so-called “real food index,” which tracks artificial colors, flavorings and high fructose corn syrup found in the company’s various soups, sauces and drinks. Today, Campbell gives itself an 80% rating—and Alexander promises that by the end of the year, that figure will increase to 85%. “We’re not perfect. We are 80% real,” he said. “But we are putting real investment and real initiatives in to make our food more real.” That includes a plan to spend $50 million in his division alone to reduce artificial colors and take Bisphenol A (known as BPA) out of the canned goods, among other moves.

The launch of the original beefsteak tomato soup is a nod to Campbell’s past—but also the company’s future.

“As food has become more mass manufactured, people have lost that connection to food,” George said. “Projects like this help reconnect people to the food, the ingredients and how the food is prepared.”