47. Purple Ketchup
January 6, 2009
One doesn’t know where to begin with Heinz Easy Squirt purple.
Perhaps this product is best attacked in waves, or “squirts” if you will of gentle but stern invectives.
1. Note the phrase “made with real Heinz ketchup” on the bottom of the label. The writer may be wrong, but isn’t this Heinz ketchup? The definition of a marketing failure is a common household product so badly misconstrued that it must be defined as itself to be recognized. You don’t see people walking around with signs that say “human” or bottles of wine clearly marked “GRAPE-BASED ALCOHOL.”
2. Note the addition of “Vitamin C.” It is a sad society that derives its nutrition from viscous purple tomatoes that ooze from a tube.
3. “EZ Squeeze.” This is an abortion of literacy. Not to mention the “EZ” is redundant: The laws of physics suggest that squeezing from a tube is, by nature, easy. More intriguing would be a tube-based product defined as a “Hard Squeeze,” or an “Impossible Extrication.”
4. Finally, and most disturbingly, we return to the nutrition: This product has 20% more vitamin C than regular “tomato red” ketchup. This could be a nice sell, if the carcinogens in blue dye #82 didn’t cancel out the benefits of cheaply manufactured water-soluble vitamins.
Is it any wonder this product and its cousins Heinz Blue and Heinz Green were pulled from the shelves? Ten dollars the marketing geniuses behind this shared a workspace with Betty Crocker.
I love “Impossible Extrication”!!! Good stuff.
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You might want to check your facts.
First off, there’s no blue #82 anywhere, and did you actually check the label?
It’s quite possible that the vitamin C was used as an acidulant to fix the color.
There’s more than one reason to add ascorbic acid to things, you know?
An acidulant?
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