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Heinz squeezes out new ketchup packet
Logo of a Heinz ketchup bottle displayed at a grocery store in Chicago, Ill.
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Kai Ryssdal: Change can be hard, as the health care debate has shown. For a company, it can be really costly, especially one whose iconic product is a household name. Heinz is doing it anyway.
Not only is the company reducing the sodium in its ketchup and introducing a version with sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup, it's also replacing those little packets that you find in cafeterias and takeout places with a new -- seriously now -- ketchup delivery vehicle, a packet they call "Dip and Squeeze."
Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman reports.
MITCHELL HARTMAN: Heinz introduced the little foil squeeze-packet at fast food restaurants in 1968.
DAVE CIESINSKI: The complaints started in 1969.
Dave Ciesinski is Heinz's VP for Ketchup.
CIESINSKI: It was too small, too hard to open, and too messy.
Ciesinski says the new plastic packet is shaped like a bottle, holds three times as much, and allows the consumer...
CIESINSKI: To dip, just like a traditional dip cup, but at the same time you can tear the top, and it allows consumers to squeeze. If they want to put it on top of, let's say, a hamburger, for example.
BRET THORN: Heinz seems to be taking a mea culpa and saying, we've been giving you a bad service, now we're going to give you a good one.
Bret Thorn is food editor at Nation's Restaurant News. He says the new packaging fits better with consumer behavior these days.
THORN: So they want to decide how much ketchup they're going to put on, and what else they want to add to their food. Sprinkling things on it and pouring things -- everybody likes that.
Ultimately, Heinz wants to boost sales to fast-food chains.
Michael Stern co-authors the "Roadfood" series. He thinks this will entice people to eat more ketchup in one venue: behind the wheel. But he anticipates some bumps in the road.
MICHAEL STERN: If I put that on my dashboard and dip a french fry into it, I like a lot of ketchup. Chances are very good the weight of the ketchup and the French fry together are going to actually yank the dip-and-squeeze container off my dashboard and onto my lap.
Next better-mousetrap on the condiment front: a dashboard holder for ketchup.
I'm Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.
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I guess the package designers hadn't considered the use of this new packet in school cafeterias. The old package is often twisted and placed on the floor...a passerby takes a step...SPLAT! This new design makes it all the easier for cafeteria ketchup splatterings...so get ready to roll up your pant legs!
Hold on here before you get all excited. I am sure this little improvement costs much more than the packet. Who gets to pay the price on this one after all the restaurants increase their prices so they can "offer" this with the meal. Wake up! Everything is being dumped on good ole average Joe. Before you know it we will be paying for those who can't afford ketchup too!! Stupid is as Stupid Does!! Keep you ketchup container along with all the idiots who will eat and drive! Maybe they can talk on the phone too! Next you know someone will develop a potty seat while you drive. What has happened to the world?????
Never mind the ketchup, my JAW dropped driving in this morning when I heard Michael Stern prophesying on how this new packet will function for DWE'ers (driving while eat-ers).
Thank you for the link, ZM. Heinz is actually proposing this as a remedy for the "problem" of eating in our car? Who are they kidding? Distracted drivers are a growing problem on our roadways, resulting in death, injury, propery damage on a massive scale. We don't "need" Heinz helping out by making it more convenient for people to dip French fries on their armrest-mounted ketchup containers. They need to visit FocusDriven.org.
Another consumer product that is actually worse for us isn't news, it's a threat.
Please follow this up with an interview with Tom Vanderbilt (Traffic: Why We Drive The Way We do), or a law enforcement expert. I want to hear what they think about "better ketchup on-the-go."
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I think these new containers will be a Enviromental Diaster, this plastic Floats even if the top is off and it lasts Forever !!These packets will probably show up in the Pacific Gyre within One year of the start of distribution.
Quite a price to keep it off your Jeans..
*I* for one am sitting here, jaw dropping on my keyboard......I am in LOVE with this container.
I was born and raised on ONLY Heinz Ketchup (in Greensburg, PA) and with NO exaggeration, I would truly line up for this new package. THANK you, Heinz for FINALLY getting this thing right !!!
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