Artificial Flavors

Panera Bread announced recently that its entire soup menu is now free of artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners, and preservatives.
There are 10 regular soups on Panera’s menu, and it also offers seasonal specials like Turkey Chili and Autumn Squash. Some 200 million Panera soups are ladled out each year, accounting for about 25% of annual sales, or $672 million. About 66 million servings of the company’s highly popular broccoli cheddar soup are served every year.

In what I’d consider a tactically-influenced move, mega-food corporation Nestle has recently announced that it would phase out artificial flavors and colors from some of its candy bars by 2015. This move will make many consumers happy as it seemingly hits a note of health-consciousness, but a company who wants to control the world’s water supply probably isn’t driven by consumer’s desires.