NEW DRAW/THIN/REDRAW PROCESS MAKES A SUPER CAN FOR CAMPBELL.

Recent reports in the media have suggested that alternative packaging will soon bring an end to the decades-old love affair between Campbell Soups and the metal food can. Those reports are misleading. Despite its adoption of innovative plastic and paper packaging for its fast-growing lines of convenience foods, Campbell Soup Co. remains committed to packaging in metal cans. And it recently demonstrated that commitment by participating in the development of a new technology for making draw/redraw cans from precoated steel coil. Since 1974, when the Food and Drug Administration issued its warning about lead in cans, food canners have been under pressure to eliminate the unwanted metal from their containers. Thus, the familiar soldered 3-piece can is gradually being phased out. Major merchant canmakers are well along in their conversion programs, as are some self-manufacturers such as Campbell Soup Co. Fewer than 50% of the food cans produced in the U. S. today have soldered side seams. They are being replaced by welded 3-piece cans and by 2-piece cans of the shallow draw, draw/redraw or draw-and-iron types.