Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

The above line is from a “Seinfeld” episode where the Soup Nazi, who seems to be a manager or an owner of a soup restaurant, doles out soup to people standing in line who must behave in a certain way to get his soup. I never watched a single episode, but I did look this up.

“No Soup for You” was a recent headline in our local newspaper, appropriated from the Associated Press, about the current plan of Campbell’s Soup Company to drop the soup from its name and be called Campbell’s Company.

I get it.

It’s been a long time since Campbell’s produced just soup. It is now an umbrella company for such products as Prego tomato sauce and Goldfish crackers. I applaud the company for expanding but I don’t see that it has to truncate its name.

Campbell’s is not alone; there are a myriad of companies out there that have abbreviated titles and logos. Examples include Dunkin’ Donuts that became Dunkin’ in 2019. Krispy Kreme dropped Doughnuts from its logo in 2021. And Domino’s removed the word ‘pizza’ in 2012. Then there’s Starbucks and KFC.

I suspect that the changes represent the larger variety of food items each establishment and brand name offers. Still, I’m a savvy enough consumer to understand that what was formerly Dunkin’ Donuts has expanded its menu. It doesn’t need a name change, and a ton of dollars that might impact the price, to tell me.