SpaghettiOs is an American brand of canned ring-shaped

pasta Pasta (, ; ) is a type of food typically made from an unleavened dough of wheat flour mixed with water or eggs, and formed into sheets or other shapes, then cooked by boiling or baking. Rice flour, or legumes such as beans or lentils, are som ...

pieces that are always in tomato sauce. It is marketed to parents as "less messy" than regular spaghetti. More than 150 million cans of SpaghettiOs are sold each year. They are sold in tomato sauce and with additions including meatballs, pieces of processed meat resembling hot dog slices, beef-filled

ravioli Ravioli (; singular: ''raviolo'', ) are a type of pasta comprising a filling enveloped in thin pasta dough. Usually served in broth or with a sauce, they originated as a traditional food in Italian cuisine. Ravioli are commonly square, though o ...

, and

calcium Calcium is a chemical element with the symbol Ca and atomic number 20. As an alkaline earth metal, calcium is a reactive metal that forms a dark oxide-nitride layer when exposed to air. Its physical and chemical properties are most similar to ...

-fortified spaghetti. While SpaghettiOs is a

trade name A trade name, trading name, or business name, is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is a "fictitious" business name. Registering the fictitious name w ...

, the equivalent food made by various manufacturers is available in many countries as 'spaghetti hoops', 'spaghetti loops', or 'spaghetti rings'.

History

Canned spaghetti—short lengths in tomato sauce—was available long before rings were introduced. Ring-shaped canned pasta was introduced in 1965 by the

Campbell Soup Company Campbell Soup Company, trade name, doing business as Campbell's, is an American processed food and snack company. The company is most closely associated with its flagship canned soup products; however, through mergers and acquisitions, it has gro ...

under the Franco-American brand, by marketing manager

Donald Goerke Donald Edward Goerke (August 8, 1926 – January 10, 2010) was an American business executive and food developer. While working for the Franco-American division of the Campbell Soup Company in 1965, he invented SpaghettiOs, and was thereafte ...

, nicknamed "the Daddy-O of SpaghettiOs", as a pasta dish that could be eaten without mess. Other shapes considered included cowboys, Native Americans, astronauts, stars, and sports-themed shapes. Goerke created over 100 products during his 35 years with Campbell, including the Chunky line of soups. SpaghettiOs were introduced nationally without

test marketing A test market, in the field of business and marketing, is a geographic region or demographic group used to gauge the viability of a product or service in the mass market prior to a wide scale roll-out. The criteria used to judge the acceptability ...

and with television advertising using the tag line "the neat round spaghetti you can eat with a spoon" and the jingle "Uh-Oh! SpaghettiOs" (these six notes are based on the earlier "Franco-American" jingle) sung by

Jimmie Rodgers James Charles Rodgers (September 8, 1897 – May 26, 1933) was an American singer-songwriter and musician who rose to popularity in the late 1920s. Widely regarded as "the Father of Country Music", he is best known for his distinctive rhythmi ...

(loosely based on his 1950s song "

Oh-Oh, I'm Falling in Love Again "Oh-Oh, I'm Falling in Love Again" is a popular song written by Al Hoffman, Dick Manning, George David Weiss, Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore and published in 1958. The best-known recording of the song was done by Jimmie Rodgers, charting in 195 ...

"). Other companies rapidly produced their own spaghetti hoops.

Nutrition

Ingredients of SpaghettiOs Original are: water, tomato puree (water, tomato paste), enriched pasta (wheat flour, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), high-fructose corn syrup, contains less than 2% of: salt, enzyme modified cheddar cheese (cheddar cheese ultured milk, salt, enzymes, calcium chloride water, disodium phosphate, enzymes), vegetable oil (corn, canola, and/or soybean), enzyme modified butter, skim milk, beta carotene for color, citric acid, paprika extract, flavoring. Potential allergens: wheat and milk. The Environmental Working Group assessed the nutrition, ingredients, and processing of Spaghettios in Tomato and Cheese Sauce, producing detailed results and a weighted score of 6.0/10 (lower is better), typical for this type of foodstuff.

Issues

Recall

In June 2010, Campbell recalled 15 million lbs (6.8 million kg) of SpaghettiOs with Meatballs (all that had been produced since December 2008 minus the large fraction that had already been consumed) due to the malfunction of a cooker at one of the company's

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

plants. No reports of illnesses associated with the product and no customer complaints were recorded at the time of the recall.

Pearl Harbor tweet

On December 7, 2013, the 72nd anniversary of the Japanese

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...

, SpaghettiOs'

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

account posted a picture of a smiling cartoon SpaghettiO holding the

U.S. flag The national flag of the United States of America, often referred to as the ''American flag'' or the ''U.S. flag'', consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red (top and bottom) alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the c ...

and captioned, "Take a moment to remember #PearlHarbor with us." The posting was met with criticism by users, who found the tweet to be disrespectful to those who were affected by the attack. The post also quickly spawned parodies, as other users such as comedian

Patton Oswalt Patton Peter Oswalt (born January 27, 1969) is an American stand-up comedian, actor and writer. He is known as Spence Olchin in the sitcom ''The King of Queens'' (1998–2007) and for narrating the sitcom '' The Goldbergs'' (2013–present) as ...

edited the cartoon SpaghettiO into photos of other national tragedies such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy,

9/11 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...

, the ''Hindenburg'' disaster, the Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' explosion, and the sinking of the ''Titanic''. SpaghettiOs quickly removed the tweet in question and apologized for any offense it may have caused. Actress and comedian Natasha Leggero faced criticism for remarks regarding the tweet during NBC's ''

New Year's Eve with Carson Daly New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz (South Korean band), The Boyz Albums and EPs * New (album), ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartn ...

'' later that month, where she quipped that "it sucks that the only survivors of Pearl Harbor are being mocked by the only food they can still chew." In response, Leggero remarked that "the amazing courage of American veterans and specifically those who survived Pearl Harbor is otin any way diminished by a comedian making a joke about dentures on television".

References

External links

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Image of SpaghettiOs with meatballs ad
{{Pasta dishes Products introduced in 1965 Campbell Soup Company brands American pasta dishes Convenience foods