A Geneology of Ketchup

H.J. Heinz first introduced his "tomato ketchup" in 1876.  By 1907 his company was producing 13 million bottles annually and exporting it all over the world.   Two factories make Heinz Ketchup, one in Fremont, Ohio and the other on the opposite bank of Lake Erie in Leamington, Ontario (until recently, they just closed it down).  A pickle factory, the largest in the world, is located in Holland, Michigan.

The Heinz Company is headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA.  It was sold to Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital in February 2013 for $23 billion.  Up to that time it had been a free standing company. 

Henry J. Heinz started his first company in 1869 in Sharpsburg, PA and then when it went bankrupt founded his second one in 1875.  

The company also produces a number of other product lines: HP Sauce, Lea and Perrin's sauce, Ore-Ida potato products,  Tater Tots potato products, TGI Friday's, Weight Watchers, and several others.  For many years Heinz was the supplier of ketchup for McDonald's restaurants, a giant in the fast food industry.  In October 2013 this relationship was terminated after a forty year relationship.  3G Capital owns part of Burger King but probably the deciding factor was hiring former Burger King CEO, Bernardo Hees, as president of Heinz.  

Where does this man get his ketchup now?

Recently the company got into some trouble when it ran an ad in the UK advertising its "New York Deli Mayo" line.  In the ad the family was represented by a male same sex couple who at the end of the ad kiss one another.  This was considered offensive by the the Advertising Standards Authority, a self-governing body of advertisers in the UK, however when it was withdrawn it offended the gay community there who called for a boycott.  This is the ad:

The Heinz family has been involved in Pennsylvania politics over the years.  H.J. Heinz III was a Republican Senator from the state from 1978 to 1991, when he was killed in plane crash.   His widow Teresa Heinz subsequently married John Kerry, former senator from Massachusetts, unsuccessful Democratic candidate for President.  His success as Secretary of State remains to be seen.  

Teresa Heinz' hubby

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While Heinz controls 60% of the US Ketchup market.

Hunt's is in second place, and started as a brand of preserved tomato products in Sebastopol, California in 1888.  It was originally named the Hunt Brothers Fruit Packing Company.    Since 1943 the company has gone through a number of incarnations, beginning with its being bought by Val Vita Food Products in that year.  It then changed its name to Hunt Foods.   Some time later Hunt Foods merged with Wesson Oil and Snowdrift Company (which sounds like lubricants for snow blowers to me) to form Hunt-Wesson Foods.   Then Hunt-Wesson Foods merged with McCall Publishing and Canada Dry to form Norton Simon Inc. in 1968. 

Norton Simon was the principal stockholder of the company after having started with Val Vita. Norton Simon Inc. was acquired by Esmark in 1983 which was acquired by Beatrice Foods the following year.   Kohlberg, Kravis, and Roberts, a firm specializing in leveraged buyouts, purchased Beatrice Foods and sold the Hunt-Wesson part of it to ConAgra the food conglomerate in 1990, who owns it as of this writing.
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Del Monte came into being in California during the 1880s when canned fruit and vegetables started to acquire a national market.    The company takes it name from the Hotel Del Monte in Monterey, California, for whom they once made a blend of coffee.   In 1898 the California Fruit Canners Association merged 18 canning companies .  The shield came in 1909.   However it wasn't until 1968 that the company renamed itself  the "Del Monte Company".    It started canning pineapple in Hawaii, and other fruits up and down the West Coast.   In 1979 it was purchased by tobacco giant RJ Reynolds.  The Fresh produce part of the company was sold off separately.  After RJ Reynolds merged with Nabisco to become RJR Nabisco, they sold it to private investors.  Ten years later it became a publicly traded company.   It purchased several brands from HJ Heinz, which ended up with Heinz shareholders owning 75% of its stock and greatly enlarged the company.  In 2008 it sold its seafood division known as Starkist to Dongwan Enterprise company of South Korea.   They got out of the baby food market and into the pet food market in the 2000's and own Meow Mix and other products.  Kohlberg Kravis and Roberts acquired Del Monte in 2011.   The Canadian business of Del Monte is owned by Con Agra.  

Maybe you don't really care what ketchup you buy.  In which case there's always the store brand.  They all taste much the same to me, in fact most private label brands are made by one of the above manufacturers.