A Bottle That Makes Squirting Ketchup Even More Fun, Thanks to H.J. Heinz and Graham Packaging

The bottle is designed to appeal to kids' playful impulses.

09/01/06 YORK , Pennsylvania , USA, - Remember how much fun it was to squirt ketchup out of the bottle when you were a kid? Now it's triple the fun, thanks to ketchup-maker H.J. Heinz Company and Graham Packaging Company, L.P.

They've come up with an innovative plastic ketchup bottle called Heinz Silly Squirts that's designed to appeal to kids' playful impulses. The closure on the bottle has three different-shaped openings, known as "splat," "double, double," and "draw," which allows kids to get really creative when it comes to squirting ketchup on their food.

"After Heinz held focus groups on the concept, they came to us with general parameters on designing the kid-friendly package," said Joe Labadie, new product development engineer for Graham Packaging. "Heinz wanted a round container with a large billboard or label space to promote the idea of three different dispensing patterns for kids to enjoy as they applied the ketchup."

Graham Packaging designed a 20-ounce, clear PET container with multi-layer barrier properties and an unusually large neck opening (43 milliliters). The bottle is topped by a trio of pop-up caps over the opening.

"This is not only a custom container, but a custom closure designed to be fun to use and easy to squeeze," said Frank Hilton, sales director for Graham Packaging.

Jeffrey Karp, packaging project manager at the Heinz Innovation Center, said, "Our objective is to deliver on what we at Heinz call the top three 'Kid Insights' -- which are fun, independence, and control. We worked closely with our packaging and design partners Graham Packaging and Seaquist Closures to develop a bottle that kids can hold and manipulate, so they can easily use the three different dispensing patterns to design and enjoy their very own ketchup creations."

Silly Squirts can be found on most grocery store shelves as well as in big-box retailers.

H.J. Heinz Company, offering "Good Food, Every Day(TM)," is one of the world's leading marketers and producers of branded foods in ketchup, condiments, sauces, meals, soups, seafood, snacks, and infant foods. Heinz satisfies hungry consumers in every outlet, from supermarkets to restaurants to convenience stores and kiosks. Heinz is a global family of leading brands, including Heinz(R) Ketchup, sauces, soups, beans, pasta and infant foods (representing nearly one-third of total sales or close to $3 billion), HP(R) and Lea & Perrins(R), Ore-Ida(R) french fries and roasted potatoes, Boston Market(R) and Smart Ones(R) meals, and Plasmon(R) baby food. Heinz's 50 companies have number-one or number-two brands in 200 countries, showcased by Heinz(R) Ketchup, The World's Favorite Ketchup(TM). Information on Heinz is available at http://www.heinz.com/news.

Graham Packaging Company, L.P., based in York, is a worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and sale of technology-based, customized blow-molded plastic containers for the branded food and beverage, household, personal care, specialty, and automotive lubricants markets. The company produces more than 20 billion container units at 87 plants in North America, Europe, and South America. It had sales of $2.4 billion over the last 12 months.

Graham Packaging is a leading U.S. supplier of plastic containers for hot- fill juice and juice drinks, sports drinks, drinkable yogurt and smoothies, nutritional supplements, wide-mouth food, dressings, condiments, and beers; the leading global supplier of plastic containers for yogurt drinks; the leading supplier of plastic containers for liquid laundry detergent; and the number-one supplier in the U.S., Canada, and Brazil of one-quart/one-liter plastic HDPE (high-density polyethylene) containers for motor oil.

The Blackstone Group of New York is the majority owner of Graham Packaging.