Napoleon to produce new CheeseburgerOs

Northwest Ohio plant 1 of 3 to make product

CheeseburgerOs, the latest flavor in the SpaghettiOs line-up.

Uh oh, CheeseburgerOs?

Oh yes, indeed, Campbell Soup Company says.

The Camden, N.J.-based food manufacturer is rolling out a new cheeseburger-inspired flavor to its SpaghettiOs lineup, and the product will have northwestern Ohio ties.

“We know cheeseburger is a family favorite,” company spokesman Megan Haney said. “There’s lots of research out there that’s told us that, and we’re interested in expanding into the marketplace.”

Campbell will produce the new variety at its manufacturing complex in Napoleon, which already makes SpaghettiOs, among other Campbell products. Campbell plants in Plano, Texas, and Maxton, N.C., also will produce CheeseburgerOs.

They’re not quite fine dining, but it’s hard to argue against SpaghettiOs as an American classic. Introduced in May, 1965, the little O-shaped pasta is still going strong. Since then, generations of kids have slurped up the spoonable spaghetti.

Even NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams has talked about eating it as a kid, telling actor Alec Baldwin in an interview earlier this year that his mother’s goulash was made with SpaghettiOs and a quarter-pound of ground beef. (He also said he ate Spam.)

“SpaghettiOs has been a kid favorite in homes for nearly 50 years, and the adults who enjoyed it years ago are now serving them to their own kids and grandkids,” Ed Carolan, Campbell’s general manager of soup and simple meals, said in a statement. “Just like the original, the new CheeseburgerOs offering stays true to our roots, providing a wholesome kid-pleasing main dish that mom can feel good about serving to her family.”

A one-cup serving of the original SpaghettiOs has one gram of fat and 170 calories, and counts for a half-cup of vegetables, though it does pack in 600 milligrams of sodium, or one-quarter of the daily recommended intake on a standard 2,000-calorie diet.

Campbell didn’t provide nutritional information for its CheeseburgerOs.

The new item will join SpaghettiOs with Meatballs and SpaghettiOs with Sliced Franks, along with the original version. In the 1980s, the company sold PizzOs and CheesOs, though those O’s are no longer on the shelf.

The company said it sold 120 million cans last year alone.

Ms. Haney said CheeseburgerOs should be in Walmart and Target stores now. “They’ll be popping up at Kroger, Publix, and all our other partners between now and September,” she said.

Contact Tyrel Linkhorn at: tlinkhorn@theblade.com or 419-724-6134.