Tomato Soup Remix is the name we have given to the cross ‘Campbell Soup 128 x Philippine No 2’. This cross was made by Canadian researchers in the late 1950s/early1960s to F5 (fifth generation). We are pretty sure this is the first time this tomato has been on the market.
The small round tomatoes (40 g – 60 g) are a beautiful chocolate-red-brown on the outside, and when ripe, a stunning deep chocolate-red-green on the inside. The compact plants (1.5 ft/ 45 cm) are early and very productive.
We wanted to grow this tomato because of its interesting pedigree. In the 1950s, the Campbell Soup line of tomato varieties was bred by George Reynard for the Campbell’s company. And the ‘Philippine No 2’ tomato was ‘famous’ as the source of the ‘high-crimson gene’ isolated by Canadian tomato breeders and then used to breed the high-crimson line of tomatoes (see Veepro, Harvestvee, Bonnyvee and Hi-Crimson tomatoes in our collection).
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Our seed source for this tomato is the USDA seed bank (GRIN) where it was donated in 1964.
The notes in the USDA seed bank indicated that this tomato had many attributes: it was prolific, its vigour was described as “good to excellent”, it was able to set fruit at low temperatures, and it had very good disease tolerance. The notes also indicated it was a compact plant and had purple colouration in its leaf veins and plant stems.
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Tomato Soup Remix did really well in our garden. The only downside was that the tomatoes were milder in taste than we were hoping for. With its superior pedigree, we were expecting great things with its taste – but when eaten fresh it was mild tasting – not sweet and rich tasting like the other tomatoes in our collection that have ‘Philippine No 2’ in their pedigree (e.g. Veepro, Harvestvee, Bonnyvee and Hi-Crimson).
However, we did use it to make tomato soup (of course!), and it made a fantastic soup. We roasted the tomatoes with olive oil and sea salt (and added some onions) and then combined the tomatoes with a homemade soup stock. Perhaps these tomatoes are not supposed to be eaten fresh but rather should be cooked — which makes sense considering that tomatoes bred for the Campbell’s Soup company would have been for processing/cooking.
You might want to consider growing this tomato as a cooking and sauce making tomato.
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How to Grow Tomatoes? Start seeds indoors 6 weeks before the last frost. Plant seed 5mm (¼ inch) deep. Transplant after the danger of frost has passed/later spring.
