Heinz Ketchup is ketchup. It’s the best, and there’s no explaining it. The remarkable thing about it is that an untrained tongue probably wouldn’t be able to tell you why Heinz tastes the best or how it tastes the best, because it just does. If you were to have a blind taste test between Heinz and Hunt’s ketchup, you’d find that 100 times out of 100 the blind people would prefer Heinz – not that being blind has anything to do with it.
One of the most disappointing realities that first world Americans live in is eating out at a restaurant that doesn’t serve Heinz Ketchup. There’s always that moment where you’re about to order the chicken fingers, look over and realize there’s some shit “fancy” brand of ketchup on the table, and instead order nothing because you’ve lost your appetite. On the flip side, finding a restaurant with Heinz is always a blessing.
With that being said, there are two problems facing the world of ketchup. The first is the dreaded non-see-thru bottle. The insides (or outsides) are painted red so that the customer isn’t aware of how empty or full the bottle is. Sure, it’s appealing, but this is literally the second worst thing having to do with ketchup. The first worst is when restaurant owners take empty Heinz bottles AND FILL THEM WILL NOT-HEINZ.
Look, I get it, running a restaurant is expensive and you need to feed your kids – whatever. I’m just saying: don’t trick the clientele by hiding a shitty product. When you order shoes from Nike.com, do they show up at your doorstep as a pair of Sketchers? Only that one time, but that was a mistake on my part.
This isn’t the theory though. My theory goes back to what I explained earlier, about how no one can actually explain why Heinz is better. It’s because they stopped making Heinz years ago.
There was a time when I could recall preferring Heinz over anything else. Now, I can’t tell the difference. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned as a consumer, it’s that no matter how misguided my opinion is, I’m always right. Same goes here: I believe that the corporate fat cats at Heinz have been filling their own ketchup bottles with lower quality product just so they can stuff their wallets.
Open your mind, man. Why wouldn’t Heinz do this? Once they got to the top, they decided to coast. If Heinz were putting out better quality ketchup, they’d have to charge more. If they charged more, people might stoop (God help them) down to buying Hunt’s. Let’s say that they decided to keep the prices the same – then they would spend more money on the production side and lose in the bottom line.
If we want our ketchup back, then we’re going to have to fight for it. I’m talking all-out warfare too: ketchup packets under toilet seats at Heinz HQ, people pretending to have committed suicide (while being covered with ketchup), ketchup effigies (or ketchigies), everything. If there’s one thing I learned about the Vietnam War, it’s that if middle-upper class white people get upset, they can almost do something about it.
Ketchup is, without doubt, the best. Nobody should mess with it. Great post!
It had never occurred to me that restaurants may refill with sub-par Hunt’s, so thanks for feeding my neurosis on that one. My best guess on using those is that when I waited tables, part of sidework was to “marry the ketchups.” You’d hold one half full bottle above the other, and vigorously shake the top one into the bottom, while male coworkers made vulgar comments about your technique. Inevitably, the two glass tips would hit, and shards would fly, and damn, you just wasted more inventory. That explains the plastic, but not the shady red paint job. Plus, plastic makes fart noises as it gets drained.