The New Shortage: Ketchup Can’t Catch Up

mjd

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The New Shortage: Ketchup Can’t Catch Up

Supply chain problems are reaching into a far corner of the business universe: Ketchup packets.

After enduring a year of closures, employee safety fears and start-stop openings, many American restaurants are now facing a nationwide ketchup shortage. Restaurants are trying to secure the tabletop staple after Covid-19 upended the condiment world order. Managers are using generic versions, pouring out bulk ketchup into individual cups and hitting the aisles of Costco for substitutes.

“We’ve been hunting high and low,” said Chris Fuselier, owner of Denver-based Blake Street Tavern, who has struggled to keep ketchup in stock for much of this year.

The pandemic turned many sit-down restaurants into takeout specialists, making individual ketchup packets the primary condiment currency for both national chains and mom-and-pop restaurants. Packet prices are up 13% since January 2020, and their market share has exploded at the expense of tabletop bottles, according to restaurant-business platform Plate IQ.

But help is on the way: The largest ketchup supplier in the United States, Heinz, is promising to increase production by 25% and make 12 billion ketchup packets this year to, um, catch up.

The New Shortage: Ketchup Can’t Catch Up
 
No shortage here, Heinz is big here on canned goods and sauce/ ketchup. Plus I make tomato sauce as we have tomatoes growing in our garden. I've made about 30 litres this season, plus I have about another 20 litres in the garage along with about 10 litres of plum sauce.

Russ
 
No shortage here, Heinz is big here on canned goods and sauce/ ketchup. Plus I make tomato sauce as we have tomatoes growing in our garden. I've made about 30 litres this season, plus I have about another 20 litres in the garage along with about 10 litres of plum sauce.

Russ

Now put all the ketchup into little packets, and you can make some good money. :laugh:

CD
 
Why are they in the fridge?
Boyfriend told me to keep them in the fridge. I don't like ketchup but these come with our Burger King orders, boyfriend loves ketchup but he can never eat all the packets.
 
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Or, you can do the good-ole Mercan fast food packet drawer...

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CD
 
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