Heinz adds sneaky design to ketchup bottles to make sure restaurants aren’t misleading customers

Heinz is so fed up of restaurants and cafes replacing their bottles with off- brand ketchup that they have a method to prevent it.

When you think of tomato ketchup, the majority of people's minds go straight to Heinz.

Of course, other brands are available, but you'll likely find a Heinz ketchup bottle in most restaurants.

Well, it wouldn't exactly be surprising to discover that restaurants actually fill up a Heinz bottle with a cheaper brand of ketchup once the original dose of the tomato goodness has depleted.

There's actually a way to tell if ketchup is true Heinz, however, with many now coming to the realization thanks to a viral social media post.

Notice the difference? (Facebook/Man Behaving Dadly)

Facebook user Man Behaving Dadly explained: "Useless but slightly interesting fact. Heinz are so tired of restaurants and cafés refilling their bottles with non-Heinz ketchup to ‘fool customers’ that they’ve developed a label sticker where the outer border matches the exact colour of genuine Heinz ketchup. If it matches (left), it’s the real deal. If it doesn’t (right), it’s condiment fraud."

Many have flocked to the comments section of the Facebook post to provide their reaction to the viral posting.

"Don’t need a sticker we know when we taste it," one person quipped.

A second wrote: "If you can't even notice the difference between Heinz and other brands is something really wrong with you," while a third remarked: "I've eaten in cafes and seen the staff 'top up' Heinz bottles with value stuff. Dangerous game to play if there's allergens in one but not the other."

And a fourth said: "It's actually sad that they have to do this! Shouldn't happen because of allergies. It could be really dangerous."

Heinz is the king of ketchup (Heinz)

It's not the first time Heinz has addressed 'ketchup fraud', as they previously highlighted the issue in a past campaign.

Speaking of the campaign, Megan Lang, Global Head of Brand Communications and Creativity at Heinz, said: "We saw someone caught in the act of refilling Heinz with generic ketchup, which prompted us to dig in further, and through social listening we discovered that this was a true and widespread behavior.

"We thought, what better way to express our core brand belief that ’It Has to Be Heinz’ than to simply amplify an existing consumer behavior in a supportive and funny way?"

Billboards and adverts displayed the slogan 'ketchup fraud' across Chicago and New York.