Part 6/15:
However, the 1990s brought a dramatic turn. Heightened health awareness and dietary trends, such as low salt and low-fat diets, started impacting pickle consumption. Public health campaigns and warnings from the Surgeon General criticized high-salt foods, and the demand plateaued or declined. Vassic, once a growth story, found its momentum stalling.
Campbell’s management responded with a series of short-term decisions. When sales slowed, they focused on cutting costs and divesting non-core assets, pushing the brand to sustain itself through less profitable channels. The biggest blunder, however, was a corporate strategy rooted in financial engineering rather than marketing or innovation.