Ohhh Nooooooo!!!!

| No Comments
Some things are icons and should not be fucked with. HP Sauce is one of these and it seems that Heinz (their current owners) are doing just that. From the Washington Post:
Britain's HP sauce leaves bad taste
More than 100 years of British tradition came to an end yesterday as the final bottle of HP brown sauce -- a popular alternative to ketchup -- rolled off a production line at a factory in central England.

HP's U.S. owner, H.J. Heinz, stuck by plans to switch production of the sauce to the Netherlands to save money, despite a high-profile campaign to keep it in Britain that saw protests outside the U.S. Embassy and lawmakers brandishing bottles of the condiment in the House of Commons.

A staple that is smothered over everything from fish and chips to the traditional English fry-up breakfast of sausages, bacon, baked beans and eggs, its advertising slogan proudly proclaims it is "The Official Sauce of Great Britain."

Its distinctive tall bottle carries a picture of the Houses of Parliament on a blue and red label -- an image that some protesters say is no longer appropriate.

The decision to close the Aston, Birmingham, plant in favor of a new factory in Elst, in the Netherlands, will also cost 120 jobs.

"The plant has been a landmark for 108 years. You could always smell it from miles away," said Joe Clarke, a spokesman for the Transport and General Workers' Union.

"The implications for the workers are terrible," Mr. Clarke added. "Most of them were looking to spend the rest of their working lives at HP."

The sauce, a tangy mix of malt vinegar, dates, sugar, apples, tomato and spices, was invented by a Nottingham grocer and the recipe was sold to the Midland Vinegar Co. in the late 1800s.

In the 1960s, it became known as "Wilson's Gravy" after the wife of Prime Minister Harold Wilson let slip that his one weakness was that "he will drown everything in HP."

There was immediate and strong opposition when Heinz announced its plan last August.

Local businesses started a "save our sauce campaign" and lawmakers tried to get the condiment banned from food outlets in the House of Commons, with some waving bottles around during a session of the prime minister's question time.
And Heinz, just like any multinational clueless dinosaur:
The HP sauce currently holds 71 percent of the $82 million brown sauce market and Heinz is starting a $3.1 million marketing campaign this month to keep consumers.

The campaign will include nationwide TV spots, door drops of samples and coupons as the company invests around $8 million into the iconic brand.

But the advertising campaign has only increased the anger of opponents to the factory move.

"It is ironic that they couldn't afford to invest to keep the plant open," said John Jordan, a Transport and General Workers' Union official for the local area. "Now they are pouring millions into promoting the product because of damage to the brand."
They could have built awesome cred by re-investing in the plant and keeping it open -- that plant has 71% of the market that also includes A-1 and other steak sauces. If it is available, I prefer it to A-1. Part of what makes a brand a brand is the corporate history and culture -- Heinz is pissing on this.

Leave a comment

October 2022

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
            1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22
23 24 25 26 27 28 29
30 31          

Environment and Climate
AccuWeather
Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Climate Depot
Ice Age Now
ICECAP
Jennifer Marohasy
Solar Cycle 24
Space Weather
Watts Up With That?


Science and Medicine
Junk Science
Life in the Fast Lane
Luboš Motl
Medgadget
Next Big Future
PhysOrg.com


Geek Stuff
Ars Technica
Boing Boing
Don Lancaster's Guru's Lair
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
FAIL Blog
Hack a Day
Kevin Kelly - Cool Tools
Neatorama
Slashdot: News for nerds
The Register
The Daily WTF


Comics
Achewood
The Argyle Sweater
Chip Bok
Broadside Cartoons
Day by Day
Dilbert
Medium Large
Michael Ramirez
Prickly City
Tundra
User Friendly
Vexarr
What The Duck
Wondermark
xkcd


NO WAI! WTF?¿?¿
Awkward Family Photos
Cake Wrecks
Not Always Right
Sober in a Nightclub
You Drive What?


Business and Economics
The Austrian Economists
Carpe Diem
Coyote Blog


Photography and Art
Digital Photography Review
DIYPhotography
James Gurney
Joe McNally's Blog
PetaPixel
photo.net
Shorpy
Strobist
The Online Photographer


Blogrolling
A Western Heart
AMCGLTD.COM
American Digest
The AnarchAngel
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Babalu Blog
Belmont Club
Bayou Renaissance Man
Classical Values
Cobb
Cold Fury
David Limbaugh
Defense Technology
Doug Ross @ Journal
Grouchy Old Cripple
Instapundit
iowahawk
Irons in the Fire
James Lileks
Lowering the Bar
Maggie's Farm
Marginal Revolution
Michael J. Totten
Mostly Cajun
Neanderpundit
neo-neocon
Power Line
ProfessorBainbridge.com
Questions and Observations
Rachel Lucas
Roger L. Simon
Samizdata.net
Sense of Events
Sound Politics
The Strata-Sphere
The Smallest Minority
The Volokh Conspiracy
Tim Blair
Velociworld
Weasel Zippers
WILLisms.com
Wizbang


Gone but not Forgotten...
A Coyote at the Dog Show
Bad Eagle
Steven DenBeste
democrats give conservatives indigestion
Allah
BigPictureSmallOffice
Cox and Forkum
The Diplomad
Priorities & Frivolities
Gut Rumbles
Mean Mr. Mustard 2.0
MegaPundit
Masamune
Neptunus Lex
Other Side of Kim
Publicola
Ramblings' Journal
Sgt. Stryker
shining full plate and a good broadsword
A Physicist's Perspective
The Daily Demarche
Wayne's Online Newsletter

About this Entry

This page contains a single entry by DaveH published on March 16, 2007 9:41 PM.

Food System Factoids was the previous entry in this blog.

Supose they did a march to protest Global Warming is the next entry in this blog.

Find recent content on the main index or look in the archives to find all content.

Monthly Archives

Pages

OpenID accepted here Learn more about OpenID
Powered by Movable Type 5.2.9