Heinz 'Dip and Squeeze' Container Aims to Conquer a Major Frustration of Evil, Profiteering Corporations

 

Some people rip the corner off with their teeth.  Others, while driving, squirt the ketchup directly into their mouth, then stuff in the fries.  Some do the unthinkable and forgo fries at the drive-through altogether to keep from making a mess in their gas-guzzling minivans and SUVs.

After observing these and other "compensating behaviors," H.J. Heinz Co. says it spent three years developing a better ketchup packet to squeeze more profit out of the public.

Heinz says the new "Dip and Squeeze" packets will begin replacing the traditional rectangular ketchup packets later this year at Wendy's Co. restaurants.  Smaller chains including Chick-fil-A Inc., Smashburger Master LLC, and International Dairy Queen Inc. started forcing the new packets on clueless customers earlier this year.

McDonald's Corp. and Burger King Holdings Inc. are experimenting on customers but refused to release their results.

As the name promises, "Dip and Squeeze" ketchup can be squeezed out through one end or the lid can be peeled back for dipping.  The red, bottle-shaped packets hold three times the ketchup, and therefore three times the calories, as traditional packets.  The new containers are more expensive than the old sleeves, but Heinz hopes the easily-duped customers learn to buy even more food, thus offsetting the increased costs and creating windfall profits.

To develop the new packet, Heinz staffers sat in air-conditioned splendor behind one-way, mirrored glass, watching consumers trapped in twenty gas-guzzling minivans inhaling noxious exhaust fumes and putting ketchup on fries, burgers, and chicken "nuggets".

"We of course tried experimenting on chimpanzees," says Mike Okoroafor, Heinz vice president of global corporate propaganda innovation and executions.  "But the stupid monkeys just ate the packets whole.  Then most of them couldn't pass the plastic, so we sold them all to the Air Force for nuclear bomb testing and moved on to humans."

To try new prototypes himself, Okoroafor forced his underpaid secretary to give him her minivan, taking it to local McDonald's and Wendy's drive-throughs to order fries and apply ketchup in the confined, low-class space.

"I wasn't going to use my Bentley or my Maserati—my chauffeurs insisted it would ruin the leather," he says.  "It's genuine Italian, made out of genuine Italian peasants."

Heinz for decades has searched for a better way to wring more profits out of the unsuspecting public with their single-serve packets.  The company has tried making them bigger, easier to open, and attachable to a cup of fries; they've even tried more effective subliminal conditioning.  Executives insist that there is no truth to the rumors that they tried lacing the packets with cocaine.  "None whatsoever," said one top company bourgeois aristocrat anonymously.  "Besides, it was too expensive."  None of the other changes could be made without sacrificing profits or even solve customer's complaints—the single-serve packets are messy, hard to open and don't provide enough ketchup in which to drown America's favorite greasy cholesterol sticks.  For about the past decade, Heinz sold two single-serve containers: the classic squeeze packet and a dipping cup.

Heinz believes traditional ketchup packets are so annoying that they stop people from ordering fries at drive-throughs.  "Fry-inclusion orders" and thus profits at drive-throughs "have been going down for years," says John Bennett, vice president of food-service profiteering for Heinz.

"Some of us have yachts and private jets that are more than two years old," he says.  "They're not going to just replace themselves."

A large, wedge-shaped packet almost made it onto the market but Heinz ditched the design months before its planned introduction in 2008.  Mr. Okoroafor declines to admit what his greedy corporation spent developing the sinister "Dip and Squeeze."

In 2006, when activist investor Nelson Peltz battled Heinz for board seats, he pushed the company to increase profiteering activities even more, large and small, including developing larger and more seductive ketchup packets.  Now Peltz sits on the boards of Heinz and Wendy's, which his holding company, Triarc Cos., bought in 2008.

Mr. Peltz declines through a lackey to admit to the true purpose of the packaging change, saying it wouldn't be helpful to either company's bottom line.

Since a supply spat between Heinz and McDonald's that arose during a premeditated 1973 tomato "shortage," Heinz, the country's largest ketchup producer, has been locked out of most of McDonald's U.S. locations, denying Heinz the ketchup-supply monopoly they so clearly desire.  Though Heinz didn't design the new packet to get back in McDonald's good graces, "that would be a wonderful side benefit," says Mr. Bennett, winking knowingly before he boards his personal 767 for another weekend getaway to Aruba.  The only McDonald's serving Heinz now are " a couple of rubes" in Minneapolis and those forced to by corporate mercenaries in Heinz's company-owned hometown of Pittsburgh, he says.

The new packets cost Heinz several times more to produce than the old rectangular pouches it has been selling for over forty years.  The new containers cost restaurants more than three times the old packets, providing a perfect excuse to fast-food chains for greedy price hikes in these tough economic times.

Restaurants pretend to give ketchup away, so "cost is king," says Amy Coltrin, senior direktor of profit enhancement for Golden State Foods Corp., a Heinz competitor (and rumored front for Monsanto Co., or maybe Cargil, Inc., or Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., or probably all three) that supplies private-label ketchup to most McDonald's in the U.S.

Stuart Leslie, president of 4sight Inc., a propaganda-design firm based in New York that worked with Heinz, says the package subtly cons the consumer about the portion.  Shaped like a bottle of Heinz ketchup and larger than the traditional packets, the malign "Dip and Squeeze" packs signal, "This is a serving, this is a bottle of ketchup," Mr. Leslie says.  "You're going to need more food to go with this."

Early tests at Chick-fil-A show the potential profit drainers: greedy customers took more ketchup with the new packets, according to Chick-fil-A surveys of about fifty restaurants over several months.  But the survey also indicated that the customers are strongly addicted to the new packets.

Some consumers appeared to be hoarding the packets, says Brian Wray, manager of brand dissimulation and artifice for the Atlanta-based food chain.  He expects food purchases will increase as the novelty wears off and people figure out how much more food they need to buy.

On a recent afternoon inside a Chick-fil-A in Atlanta, Bruce Stanford is skeptical.  The 55-year-old wage slave worries he might rip off the cover and douse himself with ketchup before scarfing down his cholesterol-and-trans-fat-laden chicken sandwich, fries and iced tea.

But after using it, the minimum-wage employee from Marietta, Ga., stays clean.  "I get the concept," he says.  "You squeeze on the sandwich and dip for fries.  I think I'm gonna need more fries…"

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Fatah: What A Bargain!!!

As you ought to know by now, George Bush has decided to free up $86 million in US aid to help shore up Mahmoud Abass' corrupt and dysfunctional government now bravely cowering in the West Bank. Eighty-six million dollars is a nice chunk of change, and as a concerned taxpayer I wanted to know exactly what that's gonna buy me. I'm sure all the parties involved would tell me something something stupid like I'm ensuring the successful continuation of the Middle East "Peace Process", whatever the hell that is. I suppose it's supposed to result in peace. So, in my naiveté I wondered whether or not al-Presidenté Abbas is interested in peace. Seeing as he's also the titular leader of Fatah, I went and found their constitution. The introduction to said document didn't exactly inspire me with confidence in my "investment"; let me show you why:


Dear brother, comrade of the struggle . . .
The significance of this constitution stems from its being an application of the principles of our struggle, the pedestal of the Movement . . . With those opening words, Fatah declares that it's entire reason for being is their "struggle", i.e. their never-ending war against Israel. This isn't exactly a ringing endorsement for our supposed partners in peace; if they're interested in living peaceably with Israel, why not say so? Moreover, the opening paragraph goes on to say that Fatah's constitution "is the diciplinary framework . . . that maintains [the Movement's] path and the revolution's future"(emphasis mine). Maintaining a revolution's future isn't exactly compatable with insuring domestic tranquility.


This constitution revolves around the following principles . . .

1. The armed revolution we are waging has been set into orbit by the principle that it is a public revolution, and not one of a distinguished class, and that the public is capable of practising struggle efficiently and conscientiously. The public is also the true protector of the revolutionary organisation. This organisation has satisfied the intimate relationship between the revolution and the public via the hierarchical structure of the Movement in which the public constitutes its solid, wide base.

To arms, downtrodden and oppressed memebrs of the proletar . . . um, Palestinians! Thou art efficient and conscientious patriots, therefore we are fit to rule over you in an overtly intimate fashion. Why? Because this piece of paper says so!

With this view of the public's role in mind, the role of the organised base in the Movement is crystallised. The Movement is in close contact with the public, sharing their cares and worries and inspired by their aspirations. The public is, therefore, the sole source of authorities and the sole, honest guardian of the Movement. It is also the only party authorised to take decisive decisions, and to elect the leadership at all levels . . .

. . . except, of course, for those of our brothers over in the Gaza Strip who voted into power a completely different movement. What the hell do they know, anyway?

2. The elected leadership assumes its responsibilities on the basis of the democratic centrality principle which warrants commitment of the lower ranks to the higher ranks' decisions. The leadership is, in turn, held accountable to its conferences and councils. Higher leaderships assume a pivotal responsibility which embodies the utter unity of the organisation in different districts and institutions.

Vote for us and we promise to form committees to hold ourselves accountable to. Really. We will. We're totally serious.

3. The Movement encourages freedom of expression and criticism within the disciplinary frameworks. This is a sacred right for all members, and no authority can deny them it. Any view or criticism within the disciplinary principles should not be taken as an indictment against a member afterwards. Free expression is the only guarantee to prevent the leaderships from committing mistakes or going astray, and it is the only effective method to convey the public opinion via the different bases to the Movement's leaderships.
4. The Movement firmly believes in self-criticism by all members in general and by those in authority in particular. This is important in order to attain the goal of free criticism and expression, to put an end to continual erring, and to spell out readiness to benefit from public and self criticism. By so doing, the Movement's experience will be very much developed and its path will be made much clearer.

Please feel free to criticise us. No, really, we encourage criticism. It is only then that we'll be able offer you the experience of our clear and fully developed diciplinary frameworks.

5. In its determination on liberation and bringing about historical social changes, the Movement attempts to launch the revolutionary moral values which are on a bar with our struggle, and to create the feeling of human dignity. To this effect, the Movement tries to liberate the individual from all social ills, especially the discrimination women face, the thing that hinders their potentials and effective contributions at all disciplinary levels. This entails that the relationships among members be objective and based on the Movement's principles and constitutions. Relationships based on personal interests have no place whatsoever. The Movement, consequently, treats all members on equal footing as far as their essential obligations are concerned, and it offers equal opportunity to all faithful and active members to occupy leading positions. And while it is keen on maintaining its path, it is keen as well to get an utmost benefit from its experiences to enrich its ideology and develop its infrastructure.

Fear not, for the Movement is your sole source of moral values and dignity and can fix all your problems. Oh, by the way, women and diversity are good things, therefore the Movement is an equal-opportunity employer, so long as your intentions are pure.

6. Through its struggle, the Movement endeavours to mobilise the public in order to gain the necessary support. This task should be handled by its members. It, therefore, spares no effort to make its members set examples for others to attract the public and consolidate their faith in and loyalty to the revolutionary organisation. As a result, the member has to lead a revolutionary and exemplary life which is based on loyalty, discipline, credibility, modesty, self-denial and altruism. At the same time, he must demonstrate the highest degree of pride, rejection of reality and conformity to the Movement's principles.

Every member of the Movement is its ambassador, so y'all need to be veritable paradigms of revolutionary virtue. Otherwise, we'll never be able to get people to believe any of this crap. And don't forget to reject reality and conform totally to what we say: remember, we have "diciplinary frameworks".



Money Poorly Spent
So, this is what I'm buying? A bunch of vague overtures to democracy, freedom of expression, and the implied consent of the governed? I don't want to maintain Fatah's path: the end of that path is the destruction of Israel and the annihilation of its people, or at least so sayeth Article the Twelfth:

Article (12) Complete liberation of Palestine, and eradication of Zionist economic, political, military and cultural existence.

Now, in the past the US has supported some unsavory characters; Chaing Kai-Shek and Syngman Rhee come to mind. But at least they were interested in working with us to fight communism. Fatah won't even bother to go that far, as far as cooperation goes:

Article (22) Opposing any political solution offered as an alternative to demolishing the Zionist occupation in Palestine, as well as any project intended to liquidate the Palestinian case or impose any international mandate on its people.

What Fatah wants is genocide, and they've pledged themselves to getting it, no matter the cost; somehow I doubt a mere $86 million will suffice.

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