Camden is home to a new venture capital fund for food startups

Campbell Soup Company wants to improve a food system that all too often leaves healthy food options off the menu for underserved communities.

To help make those improvements, the longtime Camden-based corporation has launched an independent investment arm.

Starting with $125 million from Campbell, Acre Venture Partners is a venture capital fund that invest in food startups. The fund will be managed by “unidentified outsiders,” according to the Inquirer.

The move is in part, corporate acknowledgment of growing concerns over genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Big Food.

“We recognized that people, even our own employees, are questioning food,” said CEO Denise Morrison at the annual Consumer Analyst Group of New York conference last week, where the Acre Venture Partners announcement was made.

The future of “real” food, Morrison said, “requires new approaches, new business models, smart external development and an ecosystem of innovative partners.”