FALL SIGNALS THE START OF soup season, and fans of the condensed variety may remember fall 2003 as the season they threw away their can openers.
The easy-open can end has been making inroads in retort products, but a watershed is occurring with conversions of commodity products. Seamers at Campbell Soup Co.'s four condensed-soup production plants were retooled during the summer to handle 211-diameter easy-open ends from Silgan Metal Containers. A leading copacker of condensed soups made a similar switch in the spring. Austin, Ind.-based Morgan Foods Inc. began using Crown Holdings' Eole III (easy open, low energy) ends.