Would You Buy Fancy Ketchup?
By Michelle Fabio
Heinz, the unofficial King of Ketchup, has decided that the mere enticement of more lycopene in your diet isn’t enough to sell ketchup anymore, so they’re adding a few new ingredients—including double the amount of tomatoes.
After a year of taste-testing, Heinz’s new Special Blend, aimed at foodies with more, ahem, refined tastes, will also include sea salt, cayenne pepper, and Demerara sugar.
Special ingredients, of course, mean “special” prices—a bottle (glass, by the way) of the fancy ketchup will cost about three times that of the original version.
Even the Heinz label is getting an upgrade, changing for the first time in 40 years so that it will now feature a red tomato instead of a green gherkin. The new slogan, “Grown not made” is intended to reflect the fact that Heinz has been growing their own tomatoes for 130 years.
The new ketchup, says Heinz, is in response to a “growing interest in premium products and specialty ingredients” and will have a “more intense tomato” taste to appeal to those who may have abandoned regular old ketchup for more complex sauces.
What do you think? Would you try Heinz’s Special Blend?
Source: Heinz go for posh ketchup
April 19th, 2008 at 7:06 am
I’ll give it a try. Not crazy about plain old ketchup.
April 19th, 2008 at 9:48 am
Good lord! We Southerners are notoriously brand-loyal, and Heinz is THE ketchup. But I had never noticed that they featured a gherkin rather than a tomato on the label. Shriek!!! What were they thinking?!! Yes, we’ll definitely try the new “gourmet” ketchup here at Hawk’s Haven. But darnit, if it’s not as good as the original, that precious gourmet status will hold no truck with us!
April 20th, 2008 at 1:06 am
My kids go through ketchup as quickly as some families go through milk. I could not afford to keep them in gourmet ketchup, so I’m not even going to let them get a taste of it :-).
April 20th, 2008 at 5:09 am
Deb, that’s the spirit!
Ben, I admit I went and looked at my bottle of ketchup to see if there really was a pickle on there!
Dani, very clever
April 21st, 2008 at 9:43 am
Well, I suppose it depends on whether or not they’ve figured out that HFCS has no place in food. I currently get the organic variety when I buy store-bought ketchup, as it has no HFCS. If the new one is also free of the hyper-sweet metabolism destroying corn slurry, then I’d love to at least give it a shot. If not, I’ll keep making my own quite happily.
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:44 am
Not sure of the exact ingredients (other than fancy sugar!); excellent question Ether!
November 20th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
Personally I’d rather be eating WKetchup.