Research from retailwire.com says the typical consumer requires 35 seconds to select soup from the store shelf. That compares with 33.6 seconds for the most complex food choices in a grocery store.

The research determined that consumers find only health and personal care items more difficult to shop for than soup. Why? The dizzying array of choices makes it difficult to distinguish between brands and wet and dry soup.

Campbell's is attempting to make the category more consumer-friendly. At Campbell's, the wet soup category leader, seven principles guide its shelf-management program:

1. Arrange condensed soup according to flavor.
2. Shelve vertical brand blocks.
3. Install signage to improve set organization.
4. Set condensed icon brands, such as chicken noodle and tomato, on the bottom shelf with large cans just above them.
5. Make broth a bridge between wet and dry soup.
6. Set healthful products in a discrete section.
7. Install a dedicated section for on-the-go soup.

Packaging changes help drive this strategy and they appear to be a major factor propelling Campbell's Soup At Hand to the No. 6 spot in wet soup. According to scanner data from Information Resources Inc. (IRI), dollar sales volume surged 241 percent during a recent 52-week period, to $73.6 million.