I’m Done With Progresso Soup

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Posted on November 7, 2007 
Filed Under Food

I would like to kick the ass of the son of a bitch at General Mills who came up with the unsuitable and deadly metal can top for their Progresso Soup line. Progresso Soup, presumably in an effort to compete with the Campbell’s Chunky Soup counterpart, has recently swapped their standard metal can — which was previously normal and easily opened with a commonplace can opener — with one that has a metal ring. Like Chunky Soup, the idea here is to lift the ring up and peel off the top of the can and provide convenience to consumers. The problem, however, is that the apparent R&D genius — clearly unaware of the forces of gravity and settling upon a thinner and presumably cheaper tab than Chunky Soup’s version — hasn’t considered that the fatter and shorter cylinder offered by Progresso is less conducive to this immediate can-opening strategy than the thinner and taller counterpart offered by Chunky Soup.

What resulted, as I attempted to make myself a modest lunch this afternoon, was me pulling up the tab, applying no more puissance than anyone else in tearing off the lid, with the jagged top jeering dramatically upwards with a force incommensurate to what I had effected with my thumb and forefinger. The deadly elliptical edge then made its way deeply into my right thumb — metal particulates embedding themselves, hitting nerves, causing all manner of “You Progresso motherfuckers!” to emerge from my lips, thus sullying the divine silence of my apartment, and a ruddy Peckinpah geyser of blood spawned from a vicious cut that took almost two hours to clot.

I would like to find the bastard who came up with this design, whose idea of lunch is a Robespierrean homage, and I want to watch this man open up one hundred cans of Progresso Soup and watch his own hands be sliced by his abominable creation. I am not normally a vengeful monkey, but, in this case, I want to see the bastard cry after opening up Can #89 and then have to carry on opening eleven more cans, all of them causing additional cuts.

I present this episode to warn any and all consumers of Progresso Soup that these new cans are deathtraps. And that the forty cent difference between Progresso and Chunky Soup really isn’t worth it. Particularly when you have a shitload of deadlines to meet.

(This is the reason why, by the way, I’m not answering email today.)

Comments

7 Responses to “I’m Done With Progresso Soup”

  1. A.R.Yngve on November 7th, 2007 4:59 pm

    Something similarly painful happened to people in Sweden way back, when some R&D genius tried to talk Swedes into cutting their fingers on a “new, improved” pull-to-open bottlecap.

    (The nation-wide ad campaign for the “improved” bottlecaps showed a smiling child about to pull the bottlecap lid open… which, in hindsight, seemed shocklingly sadistic.)

  2. Sacha on November 7th, 2007 5:12 pm

    All that sodium is no good for you anyway…

  3. DrMabuse on November 7th, 2007 5:36 pm

    Are you serious, A.R.? You have any evidence of this? You have me damn curious if that’s true!

  4. Erin O'Brien on November 7th, 2007 6:31 pm

    Step away from the soup can, Edward.

  5. A.R.Yngve on November 8th, 2007 5:05 am

    I swear I’m not making this up:

    For brief while (my memory is hazy on the exact date — the 80s?), an enormous amounts of glass bottles with a pull-the-ring-to-open bottlecap were produced in Sweden… and everybody hated them.

    You easily cut your finger trying to open it, because you created a sharp metal edge when the cap “sliced” open. I’ve tried it myself. An utter idiocy. The “improved” bottlecap was soon abandoned and never used again.

    I don’t know what became of the “genius” designer, but I suppose he emigrated to America and got a job at… General Mills!!
    [SHOCK MUSIC]

  6. Rory on November 8th, 2007 8:31 am

    Hope you got that cut checked out, Ed. My bro-in-law did something similar with a knife last year and learned that not only did he need stitches, he needed an operation to reattach the nerves he’d severed… otherwise he would have had no feeling on the side of his hand for the rest of his life.

  7. Amber on September 23rd, 2008 9:03 pm

    While I don’t follow your column because that would take time and effort, I did stumble upon this little rave while searching out dirt on Progresso. I survived the evil pull tab top (probably due in part to my small feminine fingers but who knows), only to be sent to the ER by the foul disgusting detergent I happened to take a sip of straight out of the convenient microwavable can. Because who checks their food these days anyways. After purging (I’ll spare the details) this gourmet sip of soup for 2 days I called the number pronted on the side of the can in #3 font. Progresso offered to mail me a certificate for a free can. Hey this is a free world and if Progresso wants to screw consumers and make a buck or a billion that’s their right!!!

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