For Heinz ketchup, nothing is more important than tomatoes. Sure, by calories, a tablespoon of the flagship condiment is 80% added sugar. But by weight - and frankly, by reputation - it’s Heinz Tomato Ketchup for a reason.
Now some of those tomatoes are in peril from climate change. The $5 billion-plus Heinz brand is critical to Kraft Heinz, the $42 billion packaged food giant that owns it. It produces 660 million bottles of ketchup each year, 300 million of them in the US.
In a recent interview, Pedro Navio, the company’s North America president, referred to Heinz as its "powerhouse.” Kraft Heinz has also invested in organic and no-added-sugar versions - and charges more for them - which then Chief Executive Officer Miguel Patricio said on a 2019 earnings call was paying off. "That is a very good example of what to do,” Patricio said, noting that putting money into the brand led to a 70% US market share.
The tomatoes used in Heinz ketchup are a particular point of pride. At its HeinzSeed research center in California, the company has spent more than 150 years evolving the fruit to ensure that tomatoes growing in the field can be processed into perfect tomato paste. The proprietary seeds are sold to seed dealers, who then sell them to farmers.
Kraft Heinz buys the tomatoes back from the farmers, making it the "largest purchaser of processing tomatoes in the world,” according to a spokesperson. California, where all of the tomatoes for Heinz ketchup sold in the US ar.