I have in the past been known to speak glowingly of Rao's Marinara Sauce…the best marinara sauce in a jar I've ever had. I am not the only person around who feels this way, which is probably why the Campbell Soup Company — makers of a great many soups that we all remember being better years ago than they are today — recently announced it was shelling out 2.7 billion to acquire Sovo Brands, the company that makes Rao's sauces.
This of course prompted a flurry of blog pasts and web chatter that we could expect Campbell's to ruin Rao's, which to many is the only jarred sauce worth pouring over anything. Campbell Soup CEO Mark Clouse has been giving interviews swearing that they won't change the recipe and it's obvious from the flurry that followed him saying this that many people don't believe him. Let us discuss some of the reasons why many people don't believe him…
The main one is that he's a CEO. This is a title that is increasingly attaining the reputation of Agent of Satan. Every unethical, illegal or just plain stupid move made by any big corporation was blessed by — or perhaps even conceived by — someone with "CEO" in their job description.
They've been known to lie. Or to promise to do one thing and then do another.
Sometimes, they say, as Mr. Clouse seems to be saying, "Look, we paid a fortune to acquire this product. It would be foolish of us to start changing the recipe." True…but investors have been known to do that, especially if they don't seem to be recouping their investment as quickly as they'd hoped. Someone walks in and says, "Hey, we could save $22 million if we switched to a cheaper olive oil"…and they could do that and claim that technically, they're not breaking their promise to not change the recipe. "It still has the exact same quantity of olive oil it always did."
Also, at some corporations these says, CEOs seem to have about the same shelf life as potato salad. The current CEO made that promise, not the corporation. It's not binding on the person who takes over as CEO month after next. A comment I've heard a few times during the current entertainment industry strikes is "Of course the CEOs have to command these huge salaries. They all know that they're going to be fired one of these days and it will take that kind of money to maintain their lifestyles."
I'm not prejudging Mr. Clouse, who seems in interviews to be a nice, sincere man. But he's been CEO of Campbells for about four-and-a-half years and before that, he was CEO of Pinnacle Foods for two-and-a-half years leaving (I think) when that company was acquired by Conagra Foods. Pinnacle specialized in "shelf-stable" foods but his position there apparently wasn't shelf-stable. No CEO job seems to be these days. They change about as fast as Spinal Tap drummers, Philadelphia Phillies managers and Donald Trump's lawyers. And no one trusts them.