The post that started ketchup craze
Orillia man’s Facebook comment, shared 133,500 times, sparked consumer support for French’s
Exactly a month ago, Brian Fernandez made a simple argument on Facebook to his 400 friends about why his family was switching to French’s ketchup.
With that post, he set off a craze on social media, generating new Canadian pride over ketchup made with Ontario tomatoes and, suddenly, ketchup bottles were flying off store shelves.
On Thursday, Fernandez, an Orillia construction worker, met with Elliott Penner, president of French’s Food Co., which made a $133,500 donation in Fernandez’s name to Food Banks Canada, matching the number of Facebook shares he garnered.
Fernandez, who was accompanied at Queen’s Park by his wife, Ann-Marie, and their three children, Laura, Julien and Chanelle, and his mother, Philomena, never imagined his post would go viral.
“We love ketchup. We put it on French fries, grilled cheese, eggs and my wife’s firecracker meat loaf,” said Fernandez, who never knew French’s made ketchup until February, when he noticed it on the bottom shelf at his grocery store.
He noted that his family, and even his parents, have been longtime Heinz lovers, but with the company’s decision to pull out of Leamington, Ont., in 2014, it made to sense to choose French’s which uses Canadian tomatoes, though its ketchup is made in Ohio right now.
“It’s amazing, the power of social media,” Fernandez said. “Being a blue-collar worker, (I was) a single voice, putting something out there.”
They also met with Ontario politicians including Premier Kathleen Wynne and Liberal MPP Mike Colle, who had threatened to launch a boycott against Loblaw, which backed down on plans to destock French’s ketchup as the controversy grew.
“It speaks to the power of one voice and how important it can be,” Penner said. “We have been overwhelmed by our consumer support, to the point we can’t keep the product on the shelf.”
The company is negotiating with potential manufacturers to move production from Ohio to southwestern Ontario, and hopes to introduce new items, possibly made by Highbury Canco, which took over the old Heinz plant. Penner couldn’t say how many jobs could be added.
The lesson learned, Penner said, was to focus on the company’s emphasis on using locally sourced ingredients where possible while urging consumers to challenge companies to do better.
“I think as we go forward, it’s a different business model for us. It’s one that says, think global but think local,” said Penner, whose French’s is part of British conglomerate Reckitt Benckiser.
“That means put the best product together. Source it locally if you can, and then make sure you leave a good imprint in the community that you work in and that you sell to,” Penner said, noting French’s has committed to donate $1.4 million this year to food banks.
Brett Serjeantson, CEO of Media Miser, a media-monitoring company, says the reaction to French’s ketchup on Twitter in the past month was mostly in Ontario, with 66 per cent of all mentions, followed by Alberta at 11 per cent.
But French’s says demand for its ketchup is soaring in both western Canada and Atlantic Canada, growing even faster than Ontario.