Richard BaganThis is a follow-up to the author’s original January 23, 2017 article, which you can find here.
Okay, I’m fired up.
I was willing to let it die with that one article, Sprague Foods. I was willing to literally just write out my sorrows in that one Burlap Sack — a column so named because whatever thing is decried in it deserves to be thrown in a burlap sack and beaten — and let it go.
But you had to go and do it to ‘em. You had to go and defensively comment on my article months after it was originally published. You just had to go and comment back to people about your soup.
Why’d you do it, Sprague? Why’d you pick that fight? You were but a mere aside in my original article. But if you wanna fight, let’s dance.
Contrary to what your comments on that original article seem to imply, Sprague, I don’t actually hate you or all your products.
I think your sweet potato soup is pretty decent. People (read: you, to us) have pointed out your Canadian roots, and as someone who is extremely into that, I’ve gotta tip my hat to a local company gettin’ it in all kinds of ways by being stocked in Costco. Costco is my favourite store, and it’s a big deal for any company to have their products stocked with them because of how Costco does their ordering. You can’t just supply your stock to one Costco; you’re either all in or you’re out. Big ups to that.
THAT SAID, SPRAGUE, YOU CAN’T WIN IT ALL. Compared to Amy’s Lentil Soup, and specifically their lentil soup — not their vegetable lentil soup (which is different, trust me), their vegetable barley soup, their tomato, none of that, JUST THE LENTIL SOUP — your product sucks. Sorry, not sorry.
Amy’s has literally perfected their lentil soup, and they even have a reduced salt variety for people who are into that sort of thing. The texture of the broth, the size of the lentils — larger than those in your own rendition — along with the perfectly soft and enticingly orange carrots and other veggies make it more inviting than the wilted leaf things, tiny gravelly-looking lentils, and general tinny scent coming of your cans.
Now, this is just the opinion of one lentil soup enthusiast (and believe me, if there’s anything I’m qualified to be an enthusiast about, it’s lentil soup). I’m sure there are tons of people who love your soup, as your weirdly overzealous social media rep or whoever runs your corporate Facebook account felt compelled to pipe up about.
I’m just saying that unless you start decreasing the amount of thyme in your recipe, beef up your lentils, and make the whole thing more soup and less weaksauce lentil water, I’m remaining an Amy’s stan. No amount of earnest PR language-peppered Facebook comments will make me change my mind.
Correction — February 9, 2019: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Sprague Foods cans as non-BPA-free. Sprague Foods Lentil Soup cans are in fact certified BPA-free. The article has since been updated to reflect this correction.
