Spam back on the menu

Link : http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=856&ncid=856&e=16&u=/nm/20041102/od_uk_nm/oukoe_life_spam



LONDON (Reuters) - Spam, the luncheon meat which valiantly sustained the country's war effort only to suffer so cruelly at the hands of Monty Python, is being relaunched in the UK.


A 2 million-pound campaign will feature the first TV adverts for the brand, portraying it as quintessentially British despite the fact it was invented in America and is now largely produced in Denmark.


"It celebrates all things British from camping to the great British institution of the pantomime," Spam said of the adverts.


"With the new ad we will remind lapsed users about the delicious taste of Spam whilst raising awareness amongst new users," said senior brand manager, Marianne Pollock.


Spam estimates the brand is worth 13.3 million pounds in the UK, where sales are growing 9.7 percent a year against a declining market for canned meat.


First produced in 1937 by Hormel Foods of the United States, Spam became an institution during World War Two when it was rammed into square cans to save shipping space.


Hormel shipped 15 million cans of food to soldiers each week, and Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev credited Spam with saving the Russian army from starvation, the firm says on its website www.spam.com.


The chopped meat gave its name to junk e-mail because of a sketch by comedians Monty Python in which singing Vikings kept drowning out a waitress offering dishes such as spam, egg, spam, spam, bacon and spam.