There are plenty of serviceable ketchups out there, but let’s face it: most of us are making a beeline for Heinz.
And of course, when you pile into a generous serving of the red stuff, you want the genuine article.
Even those of who are still smashing through a pack of cigarettes a day in the year of our Lord 2025 will be able to tell if it’s not the real thing.
Much like Coca-Cola, Heinz’s ketchup has its own particular flavour that no one can seem to replicate.
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It doesn’t stop some rotters in the restaurant industry from trying to pull the wool over our eyes – or tongues – by refilling genuine bottles with some knock-off red gunge.
When you think of tomato ketchup, the majority of people's minds go straight to Heinz.
Heinz is having none of it: those canny ketchup connoisseurs have got a reputation to uphold.
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"Useless but slightly interesting fact,” began Facebook user Man Behaving Dadly.
“Heinz are so tired of restaurants and cafés refilling their bottles with non-Heinz ketchup to ‘fool customers’ that they’ve developed a label sticker where the outer border matches the exact colour of genuine Heinz ketchup. If it matches, it’s the real deal. If it doesn’t, it’s condiment fraud."
See the image above for confirmation of the cunning ploy.
People have naturally had plenty to say
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"Don’t need a sticker, we know when we taste it," said one user who knows the score.
"If you can't even notice the difference between Heinz and other brands is something really wrong with you," said another sauce sommelier.
"I've eaten in cafes and seen the staff 'top up' Heinz bottles with value stuff. Dangerous game to play if there's allergens in one but not the other," said a safety-conscious commenter.
"It's actually sad that they have to do this!” said another commenter despairing at the state of the world. “Shouldn't happen because of allergies. It could be really dangerous."
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Heinz hasn’t been quiet about the issue, either. In a previous ad campaign, the company urged customers to be vigilant to the dinner table scourge of ‘ketchup fraud’.
"We saw someone caught in the act of refilling Heinz with generic ketchup, which prompted us to dig in further, and through social listening we discovered that this was a true and widespread behaviour,” said Megan Lang, Global Head of Brand Communications and Creativity at Heinz.
"We thought, what better way to express our core brand belief that ’It Has to Be Heinz’ than to simply amplify an existing consumer behaviour in a supportive and funny way?"
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Let’s hope those responsible face the justice they deserve.
Rachael Davis