♪♪ Brian Fernandez: Since Heinz
decided to pull the plug on its Canadian plant
in Leamington ♪♪ French's known for its
mustard, stepped in and decided to make ketchup. ♪♪ They also decided to use those
same Leamington tomatoes from Canadian farmers. We bought a bottle.
Absolutely love it. Bye. Bye. Heinz. ♪♪ Back in 2016, that's how it
all started, the Ketchup Wars. ♪♪ Scott Holland: Leamington's
always been a Heinz town, a hundred years in one town.
It's just incredible. Elliott Penner:
French's launch ketchup. What's going on in Canada? Sylvain Charlebois: Something
happened during the Ketchup Wars competition, they became
more aggressive. ♪♪ Emily Ruby: Right now, we're
sitting in the middle of the Heinz exhibit at the
Heinz History Center. Pittsburgh is where
H.J. Heinz is from and where he
started the company. You find that people think that
Heinz is a British company because of baked beans
in England and probably in Canada as well, because of the huge plant
in Leamington. Of course, we in Pittsburgh know it's ours but, it's cool to see that this company becomes
so embedded in the communities where they are,
where they have these factories. ♪♪ News clip narrator: Delivering
the new processed food products that made the number 57 famous. Emily Ruby: Henry John Heinz
starts the company in 1869. He knew if he could make
a product that was packaged in clear glass, you could
see what was inside of it. And it was something
that could be relied on, that there would be a market
for it, and he was correct. So he starts with horseradish
and he expands from there into pickles, vinegars
and eventually ketchup. ♪♪ By the 1890s, it's the
most popular condiment. And Heinz is, you know, the number-one seller
of tomato ketchup. They become the largest food
processor in the world. They're one of the first
American food brands to go global with their product. ♪♪ When Heinz starts the company, he wants his products
all over the world. And he wants to process things as soon as they're
picked from the field. But he needs more
production facilities. So in 1909, they build that factory
in Leamington. ♪♪ Scott Holland: The Heinz story
for 100 years is an incredible story here
because it's nothing but expansion. ♪♪ Leamington has always
been a Heinz town. It was their main employer. Tom Keller: They made it
a community and it worked really well because they contributed
all the time, and they would have
an annual picnic for their workers every year. You know, they kind of
turned it into a family thing. Scott Holland: They were very
generous to the town's citizens. Tom Keller: It was good
for the town, to have, you know, a local
employer like that, eh? You have a corporate sponsor
for a lot of things. Scott Holland:
Put money into parks, put money into baseball
diamonds, hockey arenas. And that was always their tenet. They wanted to make life better. ♪♪ A hundred years in one town,
for any company is just incredible. ♪♪ Mike O'Connor:
Yeah. (chuckles) You want that beer...
or you want that Heinz in there, don't you? Which side?
Pick a side. Well, hi. We're, uh,
welcome to Leamington, it's the most southernest place
in Canada, this area here. Everybody and their grandparents
have come to Leamington and seen this big old smokestack behind me,
I guess you'd say. I'm from the Windsor area, so when I got into town
and got a job, the locals were kind of
thinking, 'Oh, man, how did you get so lucky
to get into there full time?' Because they've been trying
every season to get in and-- not, not as lucky, I guess. Since you know the
history of that job, you think you're great
for life, it's like, 'Wow, this place been here
a hundred years. I just got the book.' Right on! And you tell your,
brag to your wife, family, whoever, and friends. But, once you get your layoff
notices and you start seeing the walls gettin' knocked down,
it's a different story. Yeah. Tom Keller: You always
knew that because it's, uh, it was American-owned,
you knew it-- they could move any time. Mike O'Connor: Actually, that'd
be the year it closed, 2014. They didn't pass these out,
I found 'em in the box in the back room. Peter Mansbridge:
We want to take you to Leamington, Ontario, now. More than 700 lost their jobs when Heinz closed the plant that had been there
for more than a century. Scott Holland: In late 2013, Warren Buffett,
who had ownership of the Heinz Company, decided that he was
going to downsize many of his factories. Unfortunately,
the Leamington Factory was one of the ones he deemed
that was unnecessary. Sylvain Charlebois:
They just went-- you know what? Who cares! It's Canada. Scott Holland: You're losing
a tax base of probably half a million dollars a year. That was putting the funds for sewer improvements
or better roads. It was a devastating loss. It was an abrupt end to the
Heinz story here. Mike O'Connor: Well,
I guess this would have been the future of Heinz
ketchup made in Canada. It's just dumping out.
It's gone and long gone, and I guess it
ain't coming back. Former Heinz Employee: Workers
in this company, pissed off, destroying a beautiful community and all the people
that live in it. Mike O'Connor: It was the
tomato capital of the world at one time. ♪♪ Goodbye ketchup. ♪♪ Tom Keller: So, I mean,
these are still growing, that's why they're smaller. Brent Hodge:
Is that the perfect one? Tom Keller: They're all perfect. (laughs) ♪♪ Mike O'Connor: A lot of people
didn't understand that ketchup was 100%
made in Canada for Canada and supplied only in Canada. ♪♪ Tom Keller: You know,
when the season's on, it's, it's a lot of work
to get that crop in. Dave Dyck: Tomatoes don't
like it too hot, too humid, 'cause you face
a lot of diseases. Tom Keller:
It's an intense crop. Sylvain Charlebois: You can't
just flick a switch and decide to grow tomatoes. Tom Keller: It's good for so
many days and then after that you can't really sell it. So
you're at a big disadvantage unless you have a home for all
that much produce. ♪♪ (tractor humming) Nick Purden:
What happens to a town when the major employer
shuts the door? ♪♪ Tom Keller: We were
kind of surprised. I guess we didn't realize when
the hammer was going to fall. And I didn't have a
contract the next year. For two years, I didn't have
a contract to grow tomatoes. ♪♪ Scott Holland: French's realized there's a factory here and we might be able to
make ketchup there. ♪♪ Elliott Penner:
Hi, Elliott Penner, former President of
the French's business. Before the turn of the century,
R. T. French travels around in a wagon and he sells spices
all over. And then he decides that
he's going to get into the mustard business as we
kind of know it today. And that changed the
company for sure. That beautiful
bottle of mustard. It's been in every
special occasion. We are just so lucky
to be on the table right with your three year old
and your grandfather and your grandmother and the
birthday party. We're there. And today, French's has been a global condiment business
for over a hundred years. Kraft Heinz launches
into the mustard category, and they're coming after us.
As a cha--, as a, as a business, that's not nearly
the size of Kraft Heinz, that's a tough
thing to fight back. And normally what you
would do is you drop back and you would just
protect your base. That just didn't seem
right for us. You know, we have a 100 year-old business
that's just loved by so many. Why am I protecting that?
I shouldn't be protecting that. And we thought,
you know, we need to do is we need to challenge
back in a different way. And that's when we
launched ketchup ♪♪ In Canada, it was particularly
important for us to do that using the tomatoes
that came from Leamington. ♪♪ There was an opportunity
that existed in this market and we wanted to be
local and we thought this was a great opportunity
for us to source tomatoes. I get a phone call
and someone says to me, 'Hey, Elliott, have you seen
what's going on in Canada?' 'Do we have a problem in Canada?
What's going on in Canada?' 'No, there's this guy!
And it's all over the press and he's talking
about our ketchup.' Brian Fernandez: Hi there.
I'm Brian Fernandez. I'm a small town
construction worker, and I started the ketchup wars. ♪♪ When I went to the
grocery store, we always pick up Heinz ketchup. And I noticed just below it,
a new bottle by French's. ♪♪ What caught my attention was a big Canadian flag
on the front. My wife told me about it. She said, you should
read this article about how Heinz pulled out
of Leamington, Ontario, and fired a bunch of people. Then French's came in,
and those people that were laid off or fired,
all had their jobs back. And so because of that,
I decided to support French's for supporting
Canadian workers. And then, I put it out there
on February 23rd as a post, and I got a call from a
Vancouver radio station saying, 'How do you feel about
your post going viral?' I had no idea what
he was talking about. He said, 'You need to
go on your Facebook.' Ezra Levant: Did you see
the hullabaloo over French's ketchup? Some Ontario guy started an
online campaign to get everyone to buy French's ketchup
instead of Heinz ketchup. CBC News Anchor: A social media
post about French's use of Ontario tomatoes went viral. CNBC News Anchor: This is a
rivalry. French's ketchup even slapping a maple leaf on its bottle to drum up
Canadian support. Tom Keller: It caught fire
that Heinz had closed and people were more than happy
to jump to the French's. Scott Holland: There's a lot of
people around this area that have switched to French's. Sylvain Charlebois: When Heinz
decided to leave Leamington, I don't think they
were fully aware of what was going on there. The community was able to rally and was able to secure some
really important contracts. ♪♪ Brian Fernandez:
When I did the post, I honestly did not
expect the reception. Canadians don't like
to get in a physical or, or verbal argument with anybody. It's like, 'Oh,
please, thank you. Okay, no, I'm sorry I
bumped into you,' kind of thing. But as you, as because of this
post now proves, social media, if you push us back in the
corner, we'll fight back. Tom Keller: A lot of
people were upset over it and they were angry at Heinz, so they kind of
wanted to boycott. Sylvain Charlebois:
Habits are really hard to build. But something happened during
the ketchup war competition. They became more aggressive. Jeannie Lee: Loblaws had
originally said that it started stocking French's ketchup
back in 2014, but really saw
very little interest and decided to stop carrying it,
which makes retail sense. Brian Fernandez: The Ketchup
War name actually started with Loblaws. At the time
Loblaws decided that, you know, it's, this is a product that
isn't selling a lot, so maybe we should just take it
off our availability list. It coincided with
my social media post. Because of that,
for a good two weeks, there was a lot
of protests saying, 'Why aren't you carrying this? This is a
Canadian-made product!' Elliott Penner: For whatever
reason, Loblaws decided it was a better
decision for them. Clearly, that wasn't
a good decision, and the consumer
reached out and said, 'No, we don't think
that's right.' There was protesting
in front of stores. There was,
you know, mail-in campaigns. There were people
that were boycotting. Sylvain Charlebois:
The ketchup wars were the first major case in Canada,
where you saw consumers use the power of social media
to influence the largest private sector
employer in the country. In the food business, you want to do business
with Loblaws. The maple leaf became
very important. It gained currency in that
section of the grocery store. Because French's wasn't
really that Canadian. Elliott Penner: I mean,
yeah, people would say, Hey, by the way,
they're not Canadian. No one's Canadian, you know. And...that didn't matter
so much to the consumer as you have to have
that local attachment. Jeannie Lee: Remember, French's
is still an American company. So it's not a
matter of, you know, buying a product from a Canadian
company. It isn't that at all. It was to support the Leamington
farmers, that people... Carole MacNeil: People wanted
to support Canadian farmers. Jeannie Lee: Well, exactly!
Carole MacNeil: Loblaws looked like they were going to take
the Canadian farmer product right off the shelf. ♪♪ Loblaws has changed its mind. It will keep stocking
French's ketchup. Sylvain Charlebois:
As soon as I saw Loblaws press release to admit defeat, that's a big deal. It's something I've never seen
before and haven't seen since. Elliott Penner: I remember
one of the retailers said, 'Come on, you know, you
guys are masters at this. You set this up, right? And I am...on my mother, I don't know who
Brian Fernandez was. He was a little guy
who came out of nowhere. And he, he kind of changed
the face of Canadian retailing. He was our consumer. He was somebody that cared
about his community. He had become somewhat
of a celebrity, you know, in his own right,
and he deserves that. Brian Fernandez: For almost
a month, I was eating free. Like people would recognize
me and pay for my meal. Somebody recognized
me in line and said, 'Hey, are you the ketchup guy?' I started to realize that
although I'm just a small voice, a small voice can make
a big difference in, in the country of Canada,
and across the world. ♪♪ Scott Holland:
The whole food processing story here in Leamington
will always continue. Dave Dyck: We've been the
capital of tomatoes here for, I don't know how
many years for Canada, but the ground's gettin' more
and more used for greenhouses. Mike O'Connor: Now the
marijuana places are here and make the skies
look beautiful at night. It's whatever you want it to be,
especially in this area. We've got good
farmland out here and good uh, good tomatoes. Elliott Penner:
We didn't save Leamington. Leamington doesn't
need to be saved. Inside of a lot of noise, is always a little story, a little thing,
that if you miss, you miss the gem,
you miss the nugget. And the nugget out of
Leamington wasn't ketchup. It was the community, and it was how the community rallies
and how people care. ♪♪ Scott Holland:
The Heinz Company decided that they still needed
some products made here. Brian Fernandez: Heinz products
are now being made back in Canada, which is great. Elliott Penner:
I want more manufacturing to come into Canada, and I think that will help
a lot of folks. Mike O'Connor: We're still
using local tomatoes that's still locally
made in local farms. Scott Holland: We never dreamed
that you'd have one major brand being made along with another
major brand at the same factory. You please one company,
you please another, and the money keeps rolling in to keep the factory sustainable. Sylvain Charlebois:
What Leamington taught us is that you need to think
strategically about networks. So if you had to pick amongst
the participants of the war-- Scott Holland:
If you go to some households, you'll still find
that debate goes on. You might even find more
than one brand of ketchup at a particular household. Brent Hodge: What ketchup
do you have in your fridge? Dave Dyck: At my fridge? I would
say it's probably French. Tom Keller: I have Heinz
ketchup in the fridge. Mike O'Connor: Right now?
I got President's Choice. Emily Ruby: Of course I have
Heinz ketchup on my fridge! (laughs) Scott Holland: I do believe
there's some Heinz in my fridge. Elliott Penner: You don't
need to ask me that question. Brian Fernandez: French's. (laughs) ♪♪ ♪♪
Great story made better by beating "Big Business".
I only buy frenches now.
There will be sup