How This Old-School Canned Food Brand Lost Its Battle To Chef Boyardee

Once there was a war for the hearts and stomachs of America's children. On one side was Chef Boyardee and on the other, Franco-American. It was sort of like the infamous "Cola Wars" of the 1980s between Coca-Cola and Pepsi, which the latter has attempted to reignite with its head-to-head "Pepsi Challenge," but a bit more under-the-radar. And unlike Pepsi and Coke, there was a clear loser. Franco-American, which had been around since the 1880s, was laid to rest in 2004 by its parent company, Campbell's.

Both brand's mid-century targeting of children helped drive sales, but forever divided kids into either Beefaroni or SpaghettiOs camps, never the twain to meet. Over the years Chef Boyardee began to outpace Franco-American and by the early 2000s was selling more than twice the amount of canned pasta products (see attachment) as its rival. Campbell's, which owned Franco-American since 1915, ran some market analysis and found that the Campbell's name had better standing with the public and so made the decision to phase out Franco-American, a name that once had a lot of cachet with the American public.

In 1887, A French immigrant named Alphonse Biardot started Franco-American in Jersey City, New Jersey with the introduction of his canned soups. At the time both canned food and soup weren't all that popular with the public, but Biardot did well thanks to advertising and other means, like giving tours of his factory and writing a book about his soups. Then, in the 1890s, he introduced "spaghetti à la Milanaise" in a can, becoming the first successful mass producer of a canned spaghetti product. He sold his company to Campbell's in 1915, which continued to produce canned pasta under that label.

The following decade saw a young Italian immigrant named Ettore Boiardi begin his rise to fame as a celebrity chef and canned pasta king with his anglicized Chef Boy-ar-dee brand. Boiardi sold his company in 1946, but his likeness continues to grace its packaging. In the 1950s, Chef Boyardee introduced Beefaroni for kids and in 1965 Franco-American introduced its SpaghettiOs — invented by Campbell's marketing research director Donald Goerke — with its catchy "Uh-oh, SpaghettiOs," tagline. SpaghettiOs and similar canned pasta can still be found on grocery store shelves, except for the version with franks, just one of the discontinued canned goods we wish would make a comeback. But you won't find them under the Franco-American name.