Opinion: Are We Really Ready for a Better Ketchup Packet?

(March 26) -- Recently, Heinz unveiled a new ketchup packet design that it plans to phase in over the coming months. While it costs a little more for restaurants, it holds three times more ketchup and also allows for dunking. Meaning that, overall, this new packet might actually work.

The real question, though, is, will consumers accept this new design? After all, the current ketchup container that we all know debuted way back in 1968. A year later, the moon landing would forever negate the saying, "If we can't even put a man on the moon, clearly this is the best we can come up with in terms of ketchup packets."

I think we've found the answer: the 1967 focus group survey that that led to the original packet's creation.

Dear Participant,

Hello and thank you for participating in this study in the exciting new field of market research, a discipline that is sure to do much good for both the quality and diversity of American-made products. Please fill out the following survey to the best of your ability.

1. What do you like to spend your money on?
a) Vacations with my family.
b) General food and shelter.
c) Dry-cleaning my shirts.

2. How do you usually eat your fast food?
a) While driving and steering with my knees.
b) Usually on the run and without giving the process much thought.
c) Atop a certified stationary microscope table, with my body covered in a tarp.

3. How would you prefer to apply the ketchup to your french fries?
a) Dunking, from a cup of ketchup.
b) Via a capsule that at the very least allows for easily emptying ketchup into a pool on the edge of my cafeteria tray paper.
c) I would like to individually ice french fries from tip to tip with a tiny pastry bag-like device.

4. If the packet were accidentally dropped on the floor, would you prefer it be:
a) Large enough to see, pick up and continue using.
b) Small enough to go unseen, but otherwise harmless.
c) Packed in a manner that is small enough to avoid detection yet dense enough that a human foot will transform it into an explosive device.

5. How much actual ketchup would you like in the packet?
a) The appropriate amount one assumes would accompany a meal.
b) OK, maybe slightly less than a full meal's worth, but still a reasonable amount.
c) Borderline none.

6. How would you like to open your ketchup packet?
a) My hands
b) I dunno, maybe a friend's hands?
c) Make it so that the fingertip grease from the food reacts with the packet's slippery, plastic foil exterior, rendering it impenetrable by any means other than human teeth. Do not place any sort of real opening on the packet. Instead, suggest a general area where the fortifications are weakest with an almost mocking "tear here." After, please allow for a faintly metallic twinge in my mouth followed by flecks of packet shrapnel on the lips and tongue that can only be extracted by making a blowing fllff, fliffhff sound.

7. How long would you say you'd be willing to put up with a ridiculously subpar packet design?
a) I would complain almost immediately.
b) I choose eternal cowardice.
c) I would put up with it for just over 40 years, at which time I would demand some sort of packet that holds about three times more ketchup, insisting that if there must be trouble, let it be in my time so that my children may dip in peace.

Steve Macone is a writer and performer living in Somerville, Mass. Check out stevemacone.com.


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