Heinz refreshes the original 1968 design ketchup package

Heinz refreshes its ketchup package after 42 years

On Feb 4th, Heinz released its new ketchup package. The announcement, to the surprise of many, made the major news publications, including the Wall Street Journal.

In their press release, Heinz gives us the drivers behind the design, specifically to be able to cater to the needs of squeezers and dippers. They are clearly trying to address occasion driven consumer needs through package innovation centered around package usability.

As reported by Associated Press, Heinz apparently purchased an old van to provide on-the-go inspiration to its designers. As veterans of consumer centric innovation, we do favor ethnographic research, and we find this approach rather interesting. If it does complement an approach with front-end ethnographic consumer research, we are all for design inspiration.

Details:

Size: 0.95 oz.
Opening: dual, front squeeze, or top dip

Pros:

Squeeze Opening: the flow is abundant and controllable thanks to formed nozzle for tip
Dip Opening: the opening action was simple and easy.
Closing: not closable or resealable
Structure: rigid enough to form the dipping cup, but soft enough to be squeezable

Cons:

Opening: two openings are not necessarily better than one
Handling: may be confusing since the usability of this product requires two separate mental models, not one. The soft bottom, made that way for squeezing, does not provide a solid dipping container.

Conclusion and Scores

This package does provide innovation in a field where innovations are few and far between. However, we are not a big fan of multiple usability models especially in uninvolved products like ketchup packages. We do think that two separate packages catering to two different occasions might have been the better choice for Heinz. The scores of our heuristic assessment are as follows: