Today as I sat eating my lunch, I noticed a Heinz ketchup bottle in front of me and I thought to myself, “Something is different about that bottle.”  Then it came to me, instead of saying “Heinz, 57 varieties” it said “14 oz.”.  I then thought, “Hmm…what are those 57 varieties that have followed me all my life?”  Now, before I began my search on these 57 varieties, I knew three:  Ketchup, Relish, Mustard.  The basics.

My search began at good old Wikipedia.  Unfortunately, they could not provide me with all the varieties.  But here’s what they said:

Heinz came up with “57 varieties” after seeing a shoe advertisement for “21 styles”.  At the time, Heinz was making 60 products, but the number 57 had special meaning to him so he went with it.  Wikipedia gave me some of the original products and some of their international products.  They have some pretty big bean sales over in the UK.

Heinz’s Original Products:

Horseradish, Sour gherkins, mixed sour pickles, chow chow pickles, sour onions, prepared mustard, sauerkraut, vinegar, and tomato ketchup.

Alright, so I now have 9 of those 57 varieties.  I wasn’t satisfied with the fact that Wikipedia was not providing the other 48, so I went to Google.  I ended up at yahoo.ask.com and learned that there never was 57 varieties and there never will be.  They told me that Heinz has 5700 products world wide.  I shed a tear when I learned that my entire life had been a lie.  H. J. Heinz, thanks for ruining my life.

UPDATE!!!!

As I was just putting away groceries I found a new Heinz product!  They make homestyle gravy.  We are now up to 11 when you include Ms. Bernier’s chili sauce.

UPDATE!
Life at college has brought two more Heinz products into my life: barbeque sauce and mayonaise!!