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.
