Will Frozen Meals Fly? Campbell Soup To Find Out

Campbell Soup Co. is going to find out if Americans are ready to order frozen meals by mail.

Come January, Campbell will expand its frozen food offerings by test-marketing in Ohio a line of what it calls clinically proven meals to combat high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes. It is believed to be the first such frozen meal program to offer this claim.

Customers will have a choice of 41 varieties of meals, such as an egg sandwich for breakfast, chili and stew for lunch, pasta and chicken for dinner and pretzels and cookies for snacks.

Campbell worked secretly on the meal program for five years in conjunction with the American Heart Association and the American Diabetes Association, spokesman Kevin Lowery said Friday.

The meals, to be marketed as “Intelligent Cuisine,” are to be shipped via United Parcel Service.

There are some doubts about the venture.

“It’s a little bizarre,” said investment analyst Steven Galbraith of Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Inc. in New York. “One way of looking at it is they’re Fed Exing TV-dinners around the country. I’m not sure it’s going to be a big winner.”

Campbell stock fell $1.87-1/2 Friday to close at $77.75 a share on the New York Stock Exchange.

But Campbell and the two health associations are enthusiastic.

“There are several attractive things about this - first, it’s not a drug,” said Philip E. Cryer, president of the American Diabetes Association, based in Alexandria, Va. “Second, it works. Third, it’s convenient.”

Customers will get their food supply delivered weekly and the meals will be shipped in containers that keep it frozen for 48 hours. The cost for three meals and one snack seven times a week, is $79.95, which includes shipping and handling, Lowery said.

Customers will be advised that in order to see any benefits, they have to eat “Intelligent Cuisine” for every meal for at least 10 weeks, Lowery said. But Lowery said that if a consumer wanted to order only dinner meals, Campbell would not object.

NYSE

General Motors class H, up $2.50 to $60.25 and PanAmSat (Nasdaq), down 12-1/2 cents to $27.62-1/2.

GM’s Hughes Electronics is buying PanAmSat in a $3 billion deal that would create the world’s second-largest satellite network. PamAmSat shareholders are to receive $1.5 billion in cash and 28.5 percent of the new company. Each PamAmSat share would be swapped for either $30 in cash, one share of new PamAmSat stock, or $15 a share and one-half share of the new stock.

Micron Technologies, unchanged at $27.37-1/2.

The Boise-based maker of semi-conductors reported 9 cents per share in profits for the quarter ending in August, beating predictions that it would lose 4 cents. Still, the company said its profits for the year ending in August fell 30 percent due to sharp price declines despite a rise of 24 percent in sales.

NASDAQ

Ventritex, up $3 to $18.62-1/2.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based medical device maker got approval from the Food and Drug Administration late Thursday to sell its latest models of Contour implantable heart defibrillators. These devices send electrical shocks to the heart to correct potentially deadly rhythm disorders.

Teva Pharmaceutical, down $1.25 to $45.75. and Biogen Inc., up $2.25 to $70.50.

A Food and Drug Administration advisory committee recommended approval Thursday for Teva’s Copaxone, a new drug to treat multiple sclerosis. However the chairman of the committee said he wasn’t convinced of Teva’s claim that the drug slows progression of the disease, only that it reduces the frequency of relapses of paralysis. Biogen’s drug Avonex has been shown to slow progression.