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As the cold, winter months loom up, soup becomes a hot menu item.

Favourite flavours
A breakdown of the most popular soups on menus in the country’s top restaurant chains reveals Canadians like robust flavour profiles.  The top three most common soups—onion, chili and garlic—all feature strong and distinct ingredients that yield rich flavours.

Menued slightly less, Cheddar- and bacon-flavoured soups each posted more than a 1% incidence.  Their solid representation makes sense, considering the overall popularity of creamy soups such as broccoli with Cheddar and baked potato with Cheddar.  Not surprisingly, soups with subtle herb flavourings like sage, cilantro, thyme and basil had the lowest level of incidence, averaging just 0.45%.

Base: 347 soups in the Top 250 Canadian Chains
Source: Jan-Jun 2009 Menu Monitor, Technomic Information Services.

Why variety works
A breakdown by soup type and menu occurrence at a Top 250 Canadian chain indicates this dish is indeed a popular offering.

Some soup types occur far more than others. For example, a ‘soup of the day’ offering appeared 76 times on the menus – or roughly 21% of the time – making it the most common soup selection.  This figure suggests consumers like the variety associated with different soups every day of the week.

With 41 offerings, Asian soups had the second-highest rate of appearance on Canadian menus. Given the ever-growing popularity of Asian cuisines, this figure is certainly understandable.

Six other soup types—chili, French onion, vegetable, chicken noodle, chowder and cream of vegetable—each had double-digit showings on the menus, ranging from 36 to 14 items.

However, soups such as corn chowder and Italian wedding were not well represented, appearing just twice and once, respectively. To differentiate their soup programs from the competition and possibly attract new customers, operators can consider adding these rarer soups to their menus.

Source: Technomic Left Side of the Plate Consumer Trend Report

The price of soup
An average price was calculated for each of the 16 soup types.  The vast majority of soups range from $4 to $6.  In fact, 11 of the 16 soups fall into this range, which suggests soups are often listed as appetizers on Canadian menus.

However, it’s worth noting that three soup types—curry laksa, gumbo and seafood bisque—each had average prices higher than $9.  These soup dishes are likely found on the menus of polished-casual or fine-dining restaurants, or listed as entrées.

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