We Taste-Tested 5 Supermarket Ketchups—Here Are Our Favorites

I love ketchup so much that when I came to work at this site years ago now, I felt it was important to align myself with the condiment near-immediately, including this little admission on my bio page when it first was published:

A bold move, in hindsight! I stand by it.  

In fact, I’ve never understood people’s aversion to-meets-commitment-to hating ketchup. It’s synonymous with some of the universe’s greatest joys: Cheeseburgers! French fries! Barbecue sauces! SANDWICHES! What’s not to love about a perfectly sickly-sweet thing that makes life’s best and saltiest offerings better?

Still, when I suggested a ketchup taste test as the latest installment in our taste-testing series, I was met with skepticism: "We have to eat straight ketchup??" "What kind of ketchup do we have to eat?" You know—the kinds of things people who don't truly adore ketchup say upon learning they are mandated to consume it. Undeterred, I gathered five big brands of ketchup that you’re likely to find at your local supermarket and forced the team to partake in a blind tasted. (Hey, I also gave them fries, so there were fewer complaints than I expected.) We methodically, empirically, scientifically! tasted its way through them all in a quest to identify the very best. And joke’s on my coworkers, because I am deeply pleased to report that they loved every minute of doing it!

…We all like ketchup! Some more than others, sure, but enough that I’m going to change everyone’s bio pages to include mentions of such right after I publish this piece. 

The Criteria

It’s not easy to agree on what makes A Good Ketchup. That’s mostly because everyone thinks they hate—or are better than?? Yikes!—the condiment. Or as previously mentioned, if they don’t actually hate it, they’ve doubled down to a polarizing opinion of it online (and that opinion is: “KETCHUP IS ONLY GOOD THE WAY I USE IT.”). That’s so silly! Like everything else, there are good ketchups just as much as there are bad ketchups, and a really, truly good ketchup serves to make your go-to savory staples better with its proper balance of sweetness, acid, and spice.

That balance is crucial, we found over the course of the tasting. If too sweet, ketchup can eat like chewable juice. If too acidic, it gives vinegar-based salad dressing. If it is too spicy, it simply does not contribute to the sacred experience that is eating French fries.  

In addition to smell, taste, and color, I asked our team to evaluate the ease of—and I’m so sorry—squirting. I duct-taped the bottles to remove all identifying labels and qualities and asked each person to shoot each ketchup at a singular French fry to gauge how seamlessly they could control the flow of ketchup to get the exact quantity they wanted. This ended up being an excellent gauge of ketchup looseness (bad! Loose ketchup is bad! Do I have to tell you why loose ketchup is bad?), as well as a ridiculous team-bonding experiment. Who else gets to play “hide the ketchup bottle?” at work? If you do, are you required to take it very seriously? OK. Let’s ketchup.

The Contenders

• 365 by Whole Foods Tomato Ketchup
• Annie's Organic Ketchup
• Heinz Tomato Ketchup
• Hunt's Tomato Ketchup
• Primal Kitchen Organic Ketchup
  

Overall Winner

Heinz Tomato Ketchup

Imagine opening this taste test and finding a different result! The notes from this test are delightfully predictable. “This is the red I think of when I think of ketchup,” our associate visuals director, Amanda, wrote. “What I think of as the classic American ketchup flavor (which I like!),” associate editorial director, Megan, noted. “A clear spice profile,” editorial director, Daniel, said. I didn’t participate in this test (trust me, I’m a reliable narrator, etc., etc.), but watching other people enjoy this moment made me want to skip off to the nearest McDonald’s for a large Diet Coke and a meal of medium fries.

Runners-Up

• Hunt's Tomato Ketchup
• 365 by Whole Foods Tomato Ketchup 

Though none of the runners-up matched our winner, our tasters still enjoyed the two ketchups above. They found Hunt's Tomato Ketchup distinctly more savory than Heinz’s, with a gentle, pleasant clove-like aroma. Our senior editor, Genevieve, wrote: “It reminds me of canned tomatoes, sweetened and slightly acidified.” 365 by Whole Foods Market Tomato Ketchup had a savory, onion-forward note. While our editors found it slightly too allium-heavy for dipping, they agreed they’d be happy to incorporate it into dishes like meatloaf, sloppy joes, or Japanese spaghetti Napolitan.

Key Takeaways and Conclusion

Generally, our editors preferred ketchups made from tomato concentrate, which tends to deliver a bolder, punchier flavor than ketchups made with tomato purée or paste. Both our winner, Heinz, and one of our runners-up, Hunt's, are made with tomato concentrate. Heinz Tomato Ketchup gets its characteristic sweetness from a combination of high fructose corn syrup and corn syrup, while both Hunt’s and 365 by Whole Foods Market sweeten their ketchups with cane sugar. Though most of the ketchups we tasted contain the same ingredients—tomatoes, vinegar, salt, garlic and/or onion powder, and spices—Heinz is the only brand that manages to nail the ideal balance of sweet, savory, and spiced notes.

Our Testing Methodology

All taste tests are conducted completely blind and without discussion. Tasters taste samples in random order. For example, taster A may taste sample 1 first, while taster B will taste sample 6 first. This is to prevent palate fatigue from unfairly giving any one sample an advantage. Tasters are asked to fill out tasting sheets ranking the samples for various criteria that vary from sample to sample. All data is tabulated and results are calculated with no editorial input in order to give us the most impartial representation of actual results possible.