Tomato ketchup is one of the world's
most popular condiments, and it can be found
in many households around the world.
We have it with burgers, fries, and just about anything
that we can think of to complement our meals.
Heinz is one of the market leaders in ketchup,
selling over 650 million bottles of ketchup
around the world every year.
We visited its European factory in the Netherlands
to see how the world-famous condiment is made.
Danielle Traa: Here in Elst, we make sauces
for the Kraft Heinz company.
Our main product is ketchup.
That's 70% of what we do.
We make about 1.8 million bottles a day,
and that relates to about
175,000 tonnes of ketchup a year.
Narrator: The ketchup-making process starts here,
where crates of tomato paste
weighing 1,300 kilograms
are transported from the Heinz warehouse
using automated forklifts.
The crates are opened and then go to the paste dumper,
where these huge rolling pins
squeeze the paste out of the package.
After the paste has been extracted,
it sits in a storage bin, where it's mixed with water
to give it a smoother consistency.
This makes it easier to transport to the storage tank,
where it will sit until moving on to the ketchup kitchen.
Traa: This is our ketchup kitchen, and this is where
we actually produce the tomato ketchup.
Ketchup is made of five ingredients:
sugar, vinegar, tomato paste,
brine, and secret spices.
The spices are dosed by hand.
We dose everything, we mix it,
and afterwards, it goes into our process.
The process is mainly about heating the ketchup
and then cooling it down.
Afterwards, we fill it into the bottles.
Narrator: But before any ketchup can be shipped,
each batch must be rigorously tested
through this contraption,
which Heinz calls the "quantifier."
Traa: This is our quantifier.
It's a method where we measure viscosity
of our Heinz tomato ketchup.
It's a methodology that we use
in all our ketchup factories,
so that we compare the ketchup quality
for all the factories.
What we do is we put a certain amount of ketchup
inside the quantifier, we release it,
and we measure how fast it has traveled after 10 seconds.
10.5, within range.
It's a special method designed by Heinz.
The ketchup cannot move faster than 0.028 mph.
If it has traveled too far,
we have to block it, cannot sell it.
If it's within the range, we can release it.
It's for the empty bottles.
They go into the filler.
We have 70 filling hats.
It's a filler that works by weight.
So, a bottle comes in,
we check the weight of the empty bottle,
we fill it to the proper weight with ketchup,
and then we check again if we reached the filling weight.
The boxes with caps are emptied at a bottom floor
by the operator and transported upstairs.
Upstairs, we make sure the caps are
put in the right position and go to a single row of caps
so that we can position them properly
on the bottle in the filling machine.
And for this bottle, we have three labels.
So, we have a neck label, a back label, and a front label.
These labels are self-adhesive,
so we don't need any glue for it.
After the labeler, we go to a tray packer,
where we get a tray from the bottom.
We fold it around the bottles.
After that, put a shrink wrap around it
and make sure the bottles are tight and packed in the tray.
From the tray packer, we go to the palletizer,
where a robot puts the trays in the right position.
And from the right position, we make layer
for layer on the pallet.
After that, we put a shrink-wrap around it.
Narrator: Now that we've seen how its
iconic ketchup is made,
how did Heinz become the prominent brand it is today?
Heinz was founded in Pittsburgh in 1869
by a 25-year-old named Henry John Heinz,
who began his business by selling
his mother's horseradish recipe.
Over the years, Heinz expanded his catalog,
selling pickles, vinegar, and eventually tomato ketchup,
which launched in 1876.
It was a roaring success, and in 1886,
the company began shipping the sauce to the UK.
Following the overwhelming popularity of Heinz ketchup,
Heinz started producing 13 million bottles a year
and exporting them all over the world.
Which explains why you're never too far
from a bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup.