Meet the producers
‘We started with pans of soup and a camping stove’
Amanda and Stephen Argent are the couple behind Soupologie 5-a-day soups
‘We’ve always eaten a lot of soup in our family. Stephen loves cooking, and when our daughters were small, they weren’t keen on vegetables, so he used to make really delicious soups with lots of veg hidden in them,’ says Amanda. ‘Friends started saying they were so good that we should sell them, so one year, we took a stall at a Christmas fair, made pans of soup and heated them on a camping stove. When we sold out in an hour, we realised we might be on to something.
‘I came up with the name Soupologie, because Stephen looks like a mad scientist when he’s inventing soups, and we sold from market stalls for six months, testing out what people liked. What struck us was how interested people were in what was in the soup. So we decided that we’d always make soups that were as nutritious as possible, as well as tasting really good, with green traffic lights in all categories, so people could enjoy
them without worrying about things like the sugar or salt content. We made them vegan and gluten and dairy free too.
‘We got the idea for 5 a day soups when I realised we were surrounded by fruit and veg, but even we weren’t getting our five a day – and when I researched it, I found that only 30 percent of people do, even though we all know we should do. We worked with nutritionists, to make sure we got the amounts right, and followed all the guidelines, and then it was a case of making sure the ingredients tasted good together. Stephen worked with our youngest daughter, Anastasia, on the recipes, and it took about a year to get the flavours just right. We ate a lot of soup that year!
Now we’re really proud of how the soups taste. We never wanted people to say, “I’d better have this because it’s good for me” – we want them to say, “This is really lovely, and it’s good for me.”’
The full collection is available on Waitrose now here! You can also browse our full range of soups on our site here!