Heinz on Quest for Sweeter Tomatoes
In response to the rising cost of corn, Heinz researchers are trying to breed a sweeter tomato in order to cut back on the amount of corn syrup in its famous ketchup.
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5 Comments:
Um...how about sweeting it with sugar, as they do in Canada?
Canada doesn't have the same corn subsidies/sugar tariffs as the US apparently. Heinz ketchup in Canada is made with cane sugar. I bring some back home every time I visit Montreal. It's tastier, too!
kurteye at 5:22PM on 05/18/08
Yeah, sugar and less of it. I would like that.
jdshd at 6:49PM on 05/18/08
Can someone explain why they can't use plain old sugar? What, too easy you say...how about we breed a mutant tomato! :D
Carosone at 10:11PM on 05/18/08
They don't use sugar for the same reason that US companies use corn syrup to sweeten everything: the federal government artificially inflates the price of sugar to help out US corn growers and corn processing companies, such as ADM. Sugar doesn't grow in much of the American climate, and must be imported, so the government makes it cost prohibitive to import sugar, to encourage companies to use high fructose corn syrup. It's probably cheaper to develop and grow a sweeter tomato than to use sugar. I'm sure the staff at Heinz performed a cost/benefit analysis on it.
hmlicata at 12:40AM on 05/19/08
If you buy organic ketchup (even Heinz Organic), you'll be able to get it with sugar instead of HFCS. That's what I've started doing.
galnoir at 9:00AM on 05/19/08