It doesn't matter what the inspiration is, unless they're selling art*, "inspired by" is weaselly marketing-speak for "not really." Your best bet is always to mentally delete whatever they say it is inspired by from your mental image of the product.

Inspired by Farmer's Markets? The product has nothing to do with farmer's markets. Inspired by fresh green fields? Ditto. Whether it is right or wrong depends, I suppose, on your assumptions about the public's ability to read past the crappy marketing talk. They're not lying, they're just making a very strong misdirection and hoping you'll take the bait. It's exhausting to have to read past, and I don't like it, but that's true of most marketing now.

*Art pieces are inspired by other art pieces all the time and that's okay, but if an art piece needs to proclaim in large letters that it was inspired by a particular something, I'd begin to suspect weaselly marketing speak going on there, too.

Heinz should have a little more respect for the consumer than trying to be clever in their use of 'inspired'.
I think Heinz has inspired me to Digg this with the title:
Heinz Inspiration - is it Clever or is it Insulting?
If you bought this soup would you feel conned?

You want a free market or what? Do the farmer's fear losing customer base? I don't think people shopping at a Farmer's Market are going to switch to a can because of a label.

I see cars advertised with "Formula One inspired technology" but I don't expect a Formula One car. Give the market shoppers some credit here. Let's concentrate on more critical issues. Sounds like the Parliment is as busy as Congress.

If you take a product off the shelf for using deceptive copy, you'll have to take just about everything that says healthy or natural off the shelf.

While "inspired by" may be weasley marketing-speak (and it is), it's Heinz's loop hole to use "farmer's market." They don't promise the soup is made with veggies from a farmer's market. Just that the ingredients make you think of it. I'd interpret it as similar to veggies found at a farmer's market without all the wonderful advantages (locally produced, fresh, etc.). Good luck trying to get them to remove it. Fortunately, I think a lot of consumers, though certainly not all, are used to these tactics and know how to interpret marketing-speak.

It was bound to happen sooner or later. Some nasty company exploiting people's desire for organics (or green products, environmentally safe products, take your pick) without actually doing any of the work. Sigh.

Phew...I almost bought one of these soups the other day!...It was calling to me on the shelves "mmmm I'm chunky, I'm wholesome, I'm sort of eco but mainstream, you can trust me I'm heinz".......DAMN YOU, TALENTED GRAPHIC DESIGNERS!

In response to:
"If you take a product off the shelf for using deceptive copy, you'll have to take just about everything that says healthy or natural off the shelf."

The main deal with this is that terms such as "fresh", "healthy", "natural", and (especially) "organic" are goverened by rules laid down by UK statuatory bodies such as the FSA or Trading Standards. What would happen if Organic wasn't a protected term and any manafacturer was allowed to use it however they wished? You would have many, many more supposedly 'organic' products on the shelves that have nothing to do with what Organic is all about. This is the same case here. The term 'Farmers' Market' is currently not a protected term in this way. Heinz are doing nothing in producing this soup concurrent with what real Farmers' Markets offer, nor are they following the ethics behind farmers' markets and the local food movement. Its a mass manafactuer making a mass-manafactured product, jumping on the bandwagon of local foods.

Thousands of people have worked incredibly hard to build up farmers' markets to what they are today, and for a multinational like Heinz to jump on while not adhering to any of the rules a real farmers' market operates by is wrong.

That's what the fuss is about in my personal view.

i fell for it and the reson i found this site is because i was looking for somewhere to write a review on it and tell the world how horrible that soup is. Am at the end of a few nasty days of flu, went to local shop looking for a convent garden soup, they only had this carton of heinz 'farmers market'. looked like a fresh soup, didn't check. Nearly vomited when i tried it. fingers crossed it gets discontinued. not only is it deceptive marketing, it also tastes like they're telling downright lies in terms of ingredients. NEVER AGAIN.

i know its my own fault for not checking and buying a big named brand but their advertising really got me on a day when i'm vague to say the least.

This reminds me of an ad I saw recently for soup in a US food magazine... I think it was for Campbell's Select, and they were touting how gourmet their canned soup was because it was made with "Farm Grown Vegetables".

As opposed to what? Where else would vegetables be grown?!?

Just another case of out of control corporate marketing departments...