3 Beloved Tomato Sauce Brands That Are Owned By Canned Soup Giant Campbell's

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Campbell's has been making some of our favorite canned soups since the first jar of beefsteak tomato soup debuted in 1895. The company has come a long way since then, and although it still sells tomato soup (now canned and without the "beefsteak" designation), it's definitely no one-trick pony. It also owns several other food brands, including three popular tomato sauce brands that may surprise you.   

Obviously, there's the family of soup products bearing the Campbell's name, like Campbell's Homestyle, Campbell's Chunky, and Campbell's Slow Kettle. And there are a few other products that clearly come from Campbell's, like Spaghettios and Campbell's Cooking Sauces. But brands like Swanson, which is known for its flavored broths, and V8, a popular juice line, are all members of the company's food and beverage division. This diversity of products and brands under the Campbell's name is behind the 2024 move to drop the word "soup" from the name.    

Consumers have a tendency toward brand loyalty. They also have a tendency to avoid brands that don't align with their own core values. Things like authenticity, transparency, impact, and social stance are important factors that affect consumer decisions these days, which makes knowing the brand behind the brand you are buying important. For other consumers, discovering that a well-known brand is actually owned by another well-known brand is just plain interesting, and who can resist a good fun fact? Whether the brand behind these well-known tomato sauce brands speaks to your core values or simply drives your curiosity, you'll want to know more about these saucy members of the Campbell's family.     

Prego has been around since 1981, when Campbell's first introduced this product to the world, adding to the affordable options families had to make flavorful food at home. The name, which means "You're welcome" in Italian (among a few other meanings), embodies the warmth of Italian home cooking. The convenience and quality apparently resonated with consumers, as Prego soon became one of the top-selling new products of the '80s.

The line has had plenty of time to grow in its more than 30 years on the market, and today it includes a range of pasta sauces and pizza sauces. Many of them are tomato based, like the classic Prego Traditional Pasta Sauce as well as the margherita, tomato basil, vodka, and tomato ricotta varieties. But there are also a variety of cheese sauces and pesto sauces to choose from, as well as some interesting varieties of Alfredo sauce like lemon Alfredo, spicy Cajun Alfredo, and even a garlic and caramelized onion Alfredo.   

Rao's Homemade, which was previously owned by Sovos Brands, was acquired by Campbell's in March of 2024. The brand's core product, tomato sauce, was born from the popularity of the food at the Rao family's beloved New York City Restaurant. In 1992, the restaurant began bottling its homemade sauce to meet customer demand, and a whole line of products that included soups and pastas eventually followed.  

Campbell's seems committed to honoring the integrity of the Rao brand by staying true to its original identity while supporting the brand's growth. Under Campbell's, Rao's maintains its practice of using olive oil and handpicked tomatoes, both from Southern Italy, traditionally prepared Italian cheeses, and prepping ingredients like onions and garlic in-house for maximum freshness. Today, the line has expanded to include a variety of tomato-based sauces like vodka arrabbiata, Italian sausage and mushroom, sensitive marinara (made with no onions or garlic), and Bolognese, just to name a few. And in addition to the soups and pastas, the brand also offers items like Rao's Basil Pesto Sauce, pizza sauce, and two different kinds of Alfredo sauce.      

When Campbell's acquired Rao's in 2024, that purchase included the Michael Angelo's brand, which was also owned by Sovos Brands at the time. You might know Michael Angelo's for its line of frozen foods — especially the brand's frozen lasagna, which did really well on our review of frozen lasagnas. But in 2023, the brand launched a line of pasta sauces to increase its imprint on the Italian food market with more of the homemade Italian recipes it is known for. When the product launched, there were four varieties available, but they were launched with an exclusive deal with Walmart. 

Today, you can still find Michael Angelo's tomato sauce listed at Walmart (though it may be out of stock depending on location), but it also shows up in select stores like Safeway and Kroger. While it isn't as easy to find as Prego and Rao's, all three did fairly well on our review of store-bought tomato sauces, so whether you are a fan of Campbell's or whether the brand behind the brand doesn't matter to you, you might want to try all three for yourself to see how they stack up to your taste buds.