Campbell's released its 2026 State of the Sides Report, the fifth annual edition of its holiday consumer survey, and the headline finding is one foodservice operators and retail foodservice buyers should bookmark: 80% of Americans say they enjoy cooking sides more than the turkey — up 11 percentage points from 2023. That shift in household preference is a usable signal for anyone building holiday catering packages, limited-time menus, or seasonal bundling strategy.
The Numbers
The report, based on a survey of 5,017 U.S. adults who celebrate Thanksgiving — 100 per state — was conducted in August and September 2026 by independent research firm Reputation Leaders. The margin of error is ±1.4% at the national level. Among the findings: 86% of respondents plan to serve at least four sides this Thanksgiving, with a median of five sides per table, totaling an estimated 749 million sides nationally. The top five sides have held the same lineup for three consecutive years — green bean casserole, mac and cheese, yams/sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and stuffing/dressing — though their ranking has shifted slightly year over year.
Generational appetite is notable. 65% of Gen Z and 56% of Millennials say they would be satisfied with a side-only holiday meal. Mac and cheese is Gen Z's number one Thanksgiving side for the second straight year, with 57% of all respondents calling it the dish everyone can agree on and 42% reporting it never generates leftovers.
What It Means for Operators
For restaurant and foodservice operators building holiday catering or prix-fixe programming, this data points toward a clear consumer permission structure: sides-forward menus are not a novelty positioning — they reflect where the mainstream audience already is. Catering directors who have historically anchored their holiday packages around the protein can test a sides-led bundle without the risk of appearing niche.
The report also surfaces an AI angle worth monitoring. The Campbell's Company notes that Americans are increasingly turning to new inspiration sources — including AI — when experimenting with side dish recipes. For operators tracking AI adoption in menu development and customer-facing tools, this is an early consumer-behavior signal: if guests arrive at the holiday table with AI-generated recipe ideas, catering and retail-prepared programs that align with familiar formats (casseroles, comfort bases, one-pot applications) are better positioned to capture that spend.
On the ingredient and procurement side, The Campbell's Company (NASDAQ: CPB) reports selling nearly 40 million cans of Cream of Mushroom soup during the holiday period alone, with more than 308 million cans sold across the last five holiday seasons. That volume signals category-level demand for cream-soup bases in foodservice applications — relevant context for operators managing seasonal procurement and pantry planning. Operators sourcing bulk or foodservice-pack cream soups for holiday production runs should confirm allocation with distributors well ahead of the November window.
With fiscal 2026 net sales of $9.7 billion across its Meals & Beverages and Snacks divisions, Campbell's has the distribution scale to influence holiday pantry behavior at a national level. The State of the Sides franchise — now five years old — functions as an annual consumer benchmark that competitors and retail buyers use to calibrate their own seasonal positioning. Operators without access to this kind of first-party research can extract real planning value from Campbell's published findings.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
