Campbell's Cream of Chicken substitute

this is a product or recipe search.


i am working on a formulation for a customer that relies heavily on campbell's cream of chicken soup. obviously paying for all those pretty red and white labels, and opening oodles of #5 cans is not a production friendly situation, but the customer has turned their nose at several of our attempts to replicate the soup base. this is the classic situation of a customer who wants to insist on name brand and restaurant spec ingredients in a production environment.


my last attempt was based on michigan sauce company's bechamel sauce as a cream base, and included canned chicken (the infamous 'mechanically separated' ingredient) and powdered chicken fat for mouthfeel and chicken flavor, but it is a little shallow on the creamy, dairy notes in the campbell's formulation. it was, tho, close enough to make it into our internal recipe book, so it was not time wasted. but the customer is still not satisfied, so i'm looking for new ideas.


does anybody have a more affordable alternative as a knock-off, or have a formulation to make an "identical" product?


tia!


-nicolas granju
executive chef / r&d
butterfield foods