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Comment by tbranyen | Hacker News Reader

2) Been to plenty of restaraunts that tout house-made ketchup. Sure Heinz has natural recipe variations out now, but the dijon of ketchup would be small batch sourced from garden fresh tomatoes and high end vinegar.

I've seen plenty of brands in specialty markets that are more expensive than Heinz for that reason.

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I may be in a bit of a bubble then; I think I've only been to one restaurant that made their own ketchup (for their duck-fat fries, and they were definitely an outlier). I'm sure now that I'm looking out for them, I will now see high-end small-batch ketchups everywhere.

I've seen it once or twice.

I'm curious how trends will go in the future -- maybe next year will be all about artisanal small-batch ketchups, who knows -- but it wouldn't surprise me if ~everyone who likes ketchup on things is perfectly happy with Heinz 57 and ~most people who want something else for their burgers, fries or steaks want something different. BBQ sauce, mayo, mustard, sriracha, guac, mole... and not just "ketchup, but better".

Like, imagine your friend excitedly dragging you to a new restaurant, where they serve their house-made fries with ________. The world of things that can go in that blank is so large I have a hard time imagining "artisanal ketchup" being the thing that wins out.

Whataburger uses and now bottles and sells their own ketchup. I think it is phenomenal, and I'm a fan of Heinz.

I was looking for Whataburger as a counterexample here to the sentiment that there are no widespread Heinz alternatives and found it in your comment. It’s the perfect counterexample to OP’s comment in multiple ways -

1. It’s widespread (not even artisanal) in the regions it is deployed in. I can walk into my neighborhood grocery store in Texas and always expect to see Whataburger Spicy Ketchup in the condiment aisle.

2. The spicy ketchup is a genuinely superior product to Heinz. It just straight up tastes better, feels less sugary, and it’s far enough ahead in quality that I actively seek it out over “regular” ketchup.

Humor piece about restaurants that make their own ketchup:

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/we-do-our-own-li...

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