The great ketchup war of 2016
The great ketchup war of 2016 will go down as one of Canada’s most overprocessed, anti- climatic wars of all time. Tensions had been brewing between Heinz ketchup loyalists and French’s ketchup revolutionaries for only three weeks or so before intervention from a third party — one Loblaw Cos. Ltd. — brought the conflict to a head on Monday. On that day, French’s president told the media the grocery chain had stopped selling its product, which had, for a number of weeks, experienced a surge in sales, thanks to a viral Facebook post that urged consumers to buy French’s instead of Heinz.
That Facebook post noted that French’s makes its ketchup using tomatoes f rom Leamington, Ont., whereas Heinz had shut down its Leamington operation in 2014 and moved its ketchup production to the U.S. In response to that post, patriotic condiment-lovers vowed to switch their allegiances from Heinz to French’s, and looked to their local grocers to act on their fidelity to Canada. But French’s was nowhere to be found on Loblaws’ shelves: it was being phased out, according to the company, because of poor sales. This news incited the masses, who expressed their discontent with 140- character social media attacks. By Tuesday afternoon, Loblaws had capitulated, announcing it would stock French’s ketchup in its stores once more.
The battle was thus over within a matter of hours, but the role of one curious player was largely overlooked: that of Liberal MPP Mike Colle, who threatened to lead a boycott against Loblaws if it did not put French’s back on its shelves. “I think your company has made a huge miscalculation and underestimated t he value that we put on sup- porting local foods and local jobs,” he wrote in a letter to Loblaws President Galen Weston Jr. On learning of his success, Colle was ecstatic: “MPPs really do make a difference — I can’t believe it,” he said.
Colle’s commitment to the workers in Leamington is admirable, of course, but his t hreat to l ead a boycott was decidedly less so. For starters, it doesn’t really make much sense to boycott a store over its supposed lack of support for local workers, when it still sells i ts own housebrand ketchup, President’s Choice Ketchup — which is Canadian- owned ( French’s is an American company) and processed in Canada, though it does source its tomatoes from California. Furthermore, there have surely been thousands of products that have been discontinued or removed from grocers’ shelves because of lacklustre sales and some of those products have undoubtedly been locally produced. So why should Ontarians have staged a boycott of Loblaws over ketchup, and not for any of the numerous other products it has removed from its shelves in the past?
As an MPP, Colle’s task is to serve the interests of all Ontarians, not simply those who happen to be the subject of a recent social media campaign. Some of those Ontarians work for Loblaws and its affiliates, and they surely wouldn’t appreciate a crusade to strangle their business — one led by a government official, no less. Indeed, it sets an awfully bad precedent for a sitting MPP to threaten a private company with a boycott over an economically sound, internally made business decision. Consumers generally know how to make sure their disapproval is felt at the corporate level when and if a company makes an unpopular move. Should something like this happen again, Colle would do well to act as the Swiss and remain neutral.
THE HEINZ VS. FRENCH’S STORY IS FUN, EXCEPT FOR THE PART WHERE A POLITICIAN THREATENED TO BOYCOTT A PRIVATE GROCER.