More retailers are listening to their customers and respecting their taste and disire for quality soup products,

It may seem like a forgotten, less-than-glamourous category, but soups in Canada's grocery stores were worth a very respectable $450 million in sales this year, compare to $366 million a year ago. The figures, from ACNielson, MarketTrack and covering the 52-week period ended March 24, 2001, reflect the solid position soup holds in the hearts and minds of most consumers. Soups, according to ACNielson, have a household penetration of 97.2 per cent. Not surprisingly, some manufacturers feel retailers don't give soup the attention it deserves. Given it's high penetration and its status as both a staple and an impulse item. One of the biggest trends.

Not only has eating soup before a meal shown to cut down on the total number of calories consume at that sitting, but a french study recently found that women who ate soup almost everyday had more folate, beta carotene and vitamin C in their diets than those who ate soup only occasionaly or not at all.