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Comment by Grustaf | Hacker News Reader

What’s the ketchup conundrum? Is he saying that there is only one tomato based condiment? Or one maker of ketchup? Neither is true.

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Heinz ketchup has 80% market share in Europe and 60% in the US. Anybody can make ketchup, it's one of the simplest condiments, like mayonnaise or maybe even salt. Yet it seems only Heinz can sell ketchup; the question is why.

I once read some marketing advice that said a brand should fasten onto a word and make it theirs, e.g. in cars "safety" used to be owned by Volvo.

That seems to have occurred with "ketchup" ...

The thing is, different ketchups taste vastly different. There are actually several other best-selling brands of tomato ketchup in Germany but they all taste very different from Heinz, and, in one case, objectively worse (bland). I used to think that Heinz’ taste is simply due to the ridiculous amount of sugar they pack into it but it turns out that the low-sugar Heinz variety is almost indistinguishable, taste-wise.

So I’m not convinced that it’s as simple as all that. I’m not saying marketing doesn’t play a role but it’s definitely not the only thing.

>I’m not saying marketing doesn’t play a role but it’s definitely not the only thing.

The 'bliss point' might play a major role, amongst various other factors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bliss_point_(food)

This is literally just responding to someone saying "people buy more Heinz ketchup because it's tastier" by saying "perhaps it's because they made it as tasty as they could".

Heinz may have a market lock on ketchup in the U.S., but outside North America there are dozens of varieties. To play catch up, Heinz makes Tabasco ketchup, Siracha ketchup, garlic ketchup, plain old spicy ketchup and others.

Mr. Moskowitz should revisit his research. Heinz did their preparation before capturing the market. This involved taste testers and a close examination of how ketchup flows and adheres to bread. Then there is the small item of federal regulation on the viscosity of ketchup. If you dig through the archives you will find the diagram of the test fixture for performing the test. Perhaps a friendly congressman bent some arms at the FDA. It has been known to happen.

> Yet it seems only Heinz can sell ketchup

60% marketshare in the US rather strongly indicates other people can, in fact, sell ketchup.

> the question is why.

I suspect their continued dominance is a result of marketing plus the effect of expectations of consistency leveraging past dominance.

That’s not what he talks about in the article. He talks about why ketchup only has one variety, compared to all the different kinds of mustard or spaghetti sauces.

It’s ridiculously wrong though. Ketchup has tons of varieties, even if you only talk about tomato ketchup (which is not the only kind, although the vast majority). I can easily name more common varieties of tomato ketchup than of mustard. This seems kind of symptomatic of Gladwell’s writing, to be honest: fancy, convincing, but divorced from facts and true only in a limited, cherry-picked niche.

In the context of evolutionary anthropology this is known as “just-so” stories. Fitting then, that Gladwell’s ketchup essay also contains a just-so stories. He just couldn’t resist.

Only one variety, in what way? Obviously all ketchup will have something in common, by definition, but the difference between different brands is huge. From the disgusting sweet smooth childrens variety at mcdonalds to chunky, spicy artisan catsups.

Those artisan catsups weren’t around when he wrote the article 14 years ago.

I confuses me, too, since even from a young age I remember making the choice at the supermarket whether to get Heinz or another variety. We picked Heinz because it tastes better.

But they're not perfect, because recently we had ketchup at a restaurant that made their own. It was very, very good, and we preferred it to Heinz. It's clearly possible to do better.

Also, mushroom ketchup is amazing. (Also locally made for that restaurant, apparently.)

To me, there's no more a 'ketchup conundrum' than one for mustard. Until I was an adult, regular yellow mustard was the only real choice. (Yes, there were Grey Poupon commercials. Nobody I knew actually ate it. They did make fun of it, though.)

They forgot all about Brown Sauce!

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