The coronavirus pandemic has sparked a nationwide ketchup shortage that has restaurants scrambling to get ahold of America’s most popular condiment, a new report says.
In especially short supply are ketchup packets, a hot commodity for eateries that have relied on takeout orders over the past year as COVID-19 crimped their dining room capacity, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Health officials have also helped drive up demand by pushing restaurants to ditch shared ketchup bottles for packets or other single-use containers, the paper reported.
Prices for ketchup packets have spiked 13 percent since January 2020 amid that increased demand — and Heinz, the largest producer in the market, hasn’t been able to keep up, the Monday story says.