"ketchup" news and stories

You may find the coming summer months taste a little...different. Just after the FDA announced its plans to limit salt in processed foods, Heinz has given word that it's tweaking the recipe for its iconic ketchup -- and the new bottles will hit stores this summer. The company, which has not changed this ketchup recipe in 40 years, believes the new formula -- which contains 15 percent less sodium -- will be as popular as the old version, according to the AP. And that's very popular indeed -- the brand corners about 60 percent of the ketchup market. But some customers are expressing doubt.

"Leave the ketchup alone," one Brooklynite said to the New YorkPost. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Another, an octogenarian who's been eating Heinz ketchup for most of his life, lamented in the same article: "I haven't died yet. It's really hard for me to eat without salt. I think it's infringing on our rights!"

Marketing strategists are surely thinking back to the days of New Coke, a massive PR failure, but the Heinz ketchup reformulation has some important differences. For one thing, the catalyst for the change would appear not to be PR but rather public health. Spokeswoman Jessica Jackson told the Post that the company was keeping "the needs of our consumers and our commitment to health and wellness" in mind. The other major difference is the lack of a glitzy ad campaign. Bottles containing the new recipe will have no hint on the label; customers will have to look at the nutritional data in order to tell the difference. (Or, maybe, just taste it.)

Anyone who's ever tried to eat French fries in the car or has squeezed packet after messy packet of ketchup onto a burger knows that those little condiment packages can be annoying (and sometimes impossible to open at all).

Heinz feels our pain. For the first time in decades, the ketchup company is revamping the way it packages ketchup on-the-go, the Associated Press reported.

Heinz has created the Dip & Squeeze package, a single-serving ketchup packet that has a cup for dipping and an end that can be torn off, making it easier to both dip and squeeze with less mess.

"The packet has long been the bane of our consumers," David Ciesinski, vice president of Heinz Ketchup, told the AP. "The biggest complaint is there is no way to dip and eat it on the go."

The packet also holds three times as much ketchup as the traditional Heinz ketchup packet.

Police in Murfreesboro, Tenn. are calling the recent explosion of a ketchup bottle at a local waffle joint the latest manifestation of a worrisome national trend.

Spokesman Kyle Evans says there's been a proliferation of "video Web sites describing the prank," which entails adding baking soda to a half-emptied bottle of ketchup.

"This could be a class C felony," Evans adds, citing a statute that forbids tampering with food.

According to the police report, the victim's wife called 911 after ketchup ended up "all in his face and hands, even his clothing."

"We were having breakfast, and my husband opened up a ketchup bottle and it exploded everywhere," Bonnie Brewer told the dispatcher. "(The staff) said, 'Don't tell me the ketchup bottle exploded.' It was almost like it had happened before."

What matters most to a restaurant? Is it the guests, who pay startling sums of money to be there? Is it the local farmers who grow the ingredients that fill the pantry? Or the cooks who craft dishes worth buying?

No, no and no. Judging from the amount of care expended, there's nothing restaurants value quite so highly as ketchup.

Say a table orders two rounds of onion rings and a single serving of fries. By the end of the meal, those grease-happy diners will likely have burned through half a bottle of ketchup. But that bottle won't reappear in its half-empty state, nor will it be topped off from the giant bladder bag of ketchup that's a fixture on most restaurant kitchen walls. Instead, a server will slowly pour the vestigial ketchup into another under-filled ketchup bottle, creating one full bottle (and one bottle bound for the dish room).

Marrying ketchup is standard practice at every restaurant where ketchup is consumed, which – at least in this country – means every restaurant, period. With the almost imperceptible exception of hoity-toity places that make their own ketchup and serve it in ramekins, American restaurants rely on 10-ounce Heinz ketchup bottles – and expect their servers to keep said bottles looking fresh.

Test your ketchup, mustard, and relish knowledge with our Condiment Quiz on Slashfood. Is ketchup considered a vegetable by the USDA and what are anchovies a key ingredient in? Find out here.