NEW YORK — The Campbell Soup Co. sees innovation playing a greater role in the company’s top-line performance. Executives participating in the company’s Sept. 10 investor day highlighted the expectations and platforms that will drive future growth.

Innovation contributed 2% to net sales in 2023 and is moving to over 3% in 2024, said Mark Clouse, president and chief executive officer.

“Although good, this is still on the lower end of the industry standard of 3% to 4%, but we have a clear line of sight to best-in-class levels,” he said.

He added that Campbell Soup has over “$1 billion of innovation” in the company’s pipeline and management views it as a “meaningful catalyst of growth” across its Snacks and Meals & Beverages business units.

“In fact, we expect a 4% innovation target, appropriately set at the top end of the industry standard,” Clouse said. “More specifically, on Snacks, where innovation’s more critical and competitive, we’re targeting 4% to5% of net sales, while we expect Meals & Beverages innovation to be at 3% of net sales.”

In Snacks, Goldfish Crisps was highlighted as a “standout example” of innovation by Chris Foley, president of Snacks. The platform that combines the shape of a Goldfish cracker in a chip format was introduced in December 2023 and is on pace to achieve $75 million in sales this fiscal year.

Pop’ums is another new product Foley sees driving sales growth. The product will be marketed under the Snack Factory brand and is the “perfect intersection of pretzel and popcorn,” said Foley.

New flavors will be a key point of differentiation for the Cape Cod, Kettle and Late July brands. Cape Cod will feature such new flavors as Tuscan herb and truffle while the Kettle brand is expanding the Air Fried line with flavors like Texas barbecue. Flavor additions to the Late July brand will include Hawaiian habanero and Mexican street corn.

“A brand that doesn’t always get as much airtime in our portfolio is Lance,” Foley said. “As the market leader and growth leader, Lance boasts impressive share, loyalty and velocity results backed by the broadest assortment from sweet to savory.

“We’re continuing to modernize Lance to keep its loyal fan base and fuel its relevance with new consumers. This means innovating for the pantry and the on-the-go occasions through pack formats, introducing new fillings, new cracker varieties, and applying our successful limited-time offer model to keep things exciting.”

Mick J. Beekhuizen, president of Meals & Beverages, said during his Sept. 10 presentation that flavor innovation also will be key to the company’s soup portfolio.

“First, we’re dialing up the flavor across the portfolio with unique spicy varieties across our flagship condensed business in both our eating and cooking products,” he said. “We are spicing up Swanson Broth as well as launching our first-ever ramen variety.”

Beekhuizen also said the company is reframing the Healthy Request line as heart healthy while also expanding the number of gluten-free and lower sodium offerings.

In sauces, the company plans to offer three new creamy pesto varieties of Prego, expand the Rao’s brand in the market for Alfredo sauces and more “premium” sauce varieties like white truffle marinara.