Ketchup Packet Shortage Nationwide Caused by COVID-19 Pandemic

Believe it or not, we have a ketchup packet shortage in the country caused by the pandemic.

According to the Midland Reporter-Telegram, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that ketchup packets are in short supply nationwide, so don't be shocked if your favorite drive-thru is being a bit more stingy with ketchup packets in your bag.

The problem has been caused by the pandemic making people do take-out more and not going into restaurants to eat, which most will have bottles of ketchup on the table.

But when you have take-out, they can't give you a bottle of ketchup so the packets are more widely used in that case which has caused the shortage since the average number of packets used in a pandemic increased over non-pandemic times.

Since restaurants were not using the bottles of ketchup on the table because of take-out, they had to order more ketchup packets and that has caused a shortage.

With the increase in demand for ketchup packets, the price for those ketchup packets increased 13% for your favorite restaurant too, that is why they will be a little more frugal with the number of packets they put in your take-out bag.

Heinz has stepped up to try to help the shortage by increasing their production of ketchup packets by 25%, that's about 12 billion ketchup packets a year, but that is still not enough.

So that means you might have to use your own bottle of ketchup when taking out food from a restaurant, which to me is better cause opening packets and squirting the ketchup is a lot more tedious than just taking the food home and squirting as much as you want from your own ketchup bottle in your refrigerator.

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