(Newser)
– In the grand scheme of a pandemic, it’s not so bad. Still, the Wall Street Journal reports on an unexpected hiccup related to COVID, a shortage of tomato sauce. The problem is more pronounced for restaurants looking for supplies, especially packets of ketchup, which are considered safer than shared bottles. “Everyone is grabbing tomato sauce,” explains Long John Silver’s head of marketing magazine. The chain estimates it has spent an additional $ 500,000 in ketchup lately, because these disposable packages are more expensive than buying in bulk. The monstrous Heinz, who controls about 70 percent of the U.S. tomato sauce market, is “busy doing everything we can,” says executive Steve Cornell. This includes additional changes to production plants.
History notes that retail tomato sauce sales increased 15% in 2020, probably because more people were cooking at home. A post on Mashed wonders why Heinz still seems to be in a fight mode when reports appeared months ago, including this one on CNN, that sales were rising. In fact, Heinz can pay a price: the Texas Roadhouse chain served Heinz exclusively before the pandemic, but has been forced to supplement with easier-to-find brands from wholesalers like Costco. “You can’t be faithful forever,” a company spokesman says. A chef al magazine history sees a silver potential in all of this: scarcity can cause people to give up ketchup. “We like people to experience burgers in their natural state,” says Mike DeCamp, who owns five restaurants in the Minneapolis area. (Read more tomato sauce stories.)