Please pass the ketchup - and the profits.
 
Heinz (HNZ), the world’s largest ketchup maker, says first-quarter profits climbed 12% to $229 million, or $0.72 per share. Analysts forecast earnings of $0.66 per share; the company earned $205.3 million, or $0.63 per share, in the same period last year. Sales increased 15%, to $2.58 billion.
 
The company also sells Ore-Ida French fries and Lea & Perrins sauces.
 
A lot has been written about how salsa now outsells ketchup, but most of it can be filed under what Mark Twain called “lies, damned lies and statistics.”
 
Information Resources, which tracks purchases at about 35,000 stores, found that salsa outsold ketchup $462.3 million to $298.9 million through mid-August of last year. But ketchup held a slight lead in units sold: 176 million to 174.9 million. Ketchup bottles tend to be bigger than most salsa containers so ketchup led salsa in pounds sold, 329.8 million to 184.6 million.
 
Market research data track purchases in supermarkets - not ketchup packets handed out with billions of fast food hamburgers. (Of course, market research also doesn’t count the salsa served alongside chips at Mexican restaurants.)
 
NDP Group’s National Eating Trends report, based on 5,000 people in 2,000 households who kept a diary of what they ate, found that 48% of households used ketchup in a typical two-week period, or about three times the percentage that chose salsa. Usage has been steady for more than ten years: in 1996, 48% of respondents had used ketchup and only 15% had eaten salsa during the survey period.
 
In the sprit of “Kum Ba Yah,” perhaps there’s room in America’s refrigerators for both ketchup and salsa.