Brian Fernandez has always bought Heinz ketchup. But after spotting a bottle of French's ketchup in an Ontario store, he did some serious ketchup research. That birthed a surprisingly viral Facebook post linking ketchup and Canadian economic nationalism.
Fernandez discovered that as of January French's uses the very same Leamington, Ontario tomatoes that Heinz stopped buying when it closed its ketchup plant there. "Bye. Bye. Heinz," Fernandez wrote. His post has now been shared over 90,000 times.
"The only reason I posted that Facebook post was to inform people that Canadian jobs were lost because Heinz decided to pack up leaving 700-plus hard working Canadian farmers and plant workers without an income," he said.
As for the number of Facebook shares, he calls it "mind boggling."
Many commenters had no idea about the Canadian backstory of French's and Heinz ketchup. Some were now ready to give French's a shot.
Fernandez loved that French's uses Canadian tomatoes and donates to food banks in the country. But in the end it still came down to taste. "We did a family taste test," he said.
Fernandez said he'd never thought of Leamington or its tomato farmers before. But now tens of thousands of Canadians are thinking of them thanks to him.
