This rarely seen 1940s corporate film attempts to explain the history of the H.J. Heinz Company and one of its all time great products, tomato ketchup. It starts over a hundred years ago with a search for tomatoes…and that’s about 13 minutes of story. Finally the right seeds are developed by a firm that ends up being called the Livingston Seed Company. The experimentation done by Heinz to develop the perfect ketchup is dramatized at 14:30, with chemical analysis of different tomato varieties, that leads to a feat of genetic engineering…producing the “perfect tomato”. The film ends with images of modern ketchup production as it occurred in the 40s, with shots of tomatoes being harvested and processed at a large factory. The handling of the tomatoes is something to seen as they are sorted, cleaned, trimmed — that’s the last time they are touched by human hands — and then scalded, cooked and moved into bottles.
First introduced in 1876, Heinz Tomato Ketchup remains one of the best selling brands of ketchup. From 1906 it was produced without preservatives. In 1907, Heinz started producing 13 million bottles of ketchup per year, exporting ketchup all over the world, including India, Australia, South America, Japan, Indonesia, New Zealand, South Africa and the United Kingdom. Heinz ketchup is often served at restaurants in the United States and Canada, as well as many other countries. As a condiment for many foods, such as french fries, chips, hamburgers and hot dogs, Heinz ketchup uses the slogan, “America’s Favorite Ketchup.” As of 2012, there are more than 650 million bottles of Heinz Tomato Ketchup being sold every year throughout the world.
In January 2009, the label design was altered, with the illustration of a gherkin pickle that had adorned the label since the 1890s removed and replaced with an illustration of a vine-ripened tomato accompanied by the slogan “Grown not made”.
Most of the world’s Heinz tomato ketchup is made in the main U.S. plant at Fremont, Ohio, and in Leamington, Ontario, for the Canadian market (Both plants are located on opposite sides of Lake Erie).
Besides glass bottles, Heinz ketchup comes in squeezable plastic containers and single-serving packets.
In a recent American Customer Satisfaction Index poll of 10,644 consumers, H.J. Heinz Co. had the highest score of any food or beverage firm, higher than Kraft, Coca-Cola, and Nestlé.
We encourage viewers to add comments and, especially, to provide additional information about our videos by adding a comment! See something interesting? Tell people what it is and what they can see by writing something for example like: “01:00:12:00 — President Roosevelt is seen meeting with Winston Churchill at the Quebec Conference.”
This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD and 2k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com
