In 1876 Henry Heinz started selling Tomato Catsup – it sold well but the name didn’t catch on. Does anyone make ketchup better than Heinz?
There are two candidates. Tiptree use 180 grams of tomatoes to make 100 grams of ketchup, much more than Heinz’s 148 grams. Tiptree has 31 grams of sugar and 1.2 of salt per 100 grams; Heinz has 3.4 and 0.3 grams of sugar and salt. Heinz does seem a lot healthier.
Now there is a new brand on the market, Dr Will’s Tomato Ketchup. Dr Will is Dr Will Breakey who founded the brand with restaurateur Josh Rose and banker Liam White. They use only 0.1 grams of salt and sweeten their ketchup with 1.7 grams extracted from dates and beetroot. Oddly there doesn’t seem to be much tomato content; just 36% tomato paste but maybe Tiptree’s 180 grams is reduced to a similar amount when its boiled down. I ordered a few bottles and their mayonnaise on-line yesterday. The trade-off for their healthier ingredients will be a shorter fridge life but this has considerable advantages for Dr Will. With no restaurants to supply for most of the year their products are now on the shelves of Tesco and Waitrose. This expansion has left the young company casting around for £300 million to grow their business. I wonder if Dr Will’s Tomato Ketchup will be a household name in 150 years?
The irony of this quest for the Holy Grail of healthy ketchup will not be lost on you. It usually accompanies burgers and fries the unhealthiness of which dwarfs a dollop of the red stuff.