Heinz adds secret design to bottles to catch out restaurant 'cheats'

Heinz implemented a sneaky design to their ketchup bottles to catch people refilling them with off-brand sauces.

When people think of tomato ketchup, Heinz is the brand that comes to mind for most. The sauce once helped save the life of a man who was shipwrecked and even has people clamouring for a specially designed phone case where they can store an emergency sachet.

Unfortunately for Heinz, it’s pretty well-known that some food establishments fill their used bottles with off-brand ketchup that is potentially cheaper.

But, thanks to a design feature on the Heinz bottle, there’s an easy way to tell if what is in the bottle is the real deal and it’s all to do with the label.

In a viral social media post, someone explained: “Useless but slightly interesting fact. Heinz are so tired of restaurants and cafés refilling their bottles with non-Heinz ketchup to ‘fool customers’ that they’ve developed a label sticker where the outer border matches the exact colour of genuine Heinz ketchup.”

They posted a picture of a bottle with real Heinz ketchup and one with another brand inside to show how the colour of the label matches the colour of the real sauce inside.

According to Contagious, the initiative was started in Turkey as part of a campaign titled “Is That Heinz?”.

Is That Heinz?/Wunderman Thompson Turkey

“I eat HEINZ ketchup only and I can tell the difference when I taste some off brand version,” someone commented.

Another wrote: “You know this finally makes sense! I’ve always said it tastes different in some places we go out for dinner.”

One person argued: “If you are a true Heinz aficionado, you will taste the difference.”

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