Ketchup Food Culture

Modern ketchup dates from the early 20th century. The direct cause of its emergence was the discussion about the use of sodium benzoate. Harvey Wylie, the father of the FDA, cast doubt on the safety of benzoic acid. So entrepreneurs, notably H. J. Heinz (founder of Heinz Food Company), began looking for substances that could replace benzoic acid.
Previous tomato sauces were very thin, due to the use of unripe tomatoes with less pectin. Tomato sauce at that time also contained less vinegar than today. By selecting ripe tomatoes as raw materials, there is no need to use benzoic acid in the tomato sauce, and the taste is no worse than earlier tomato sauces. Some experts believe that this change in ingredients not only eliminated the use of benzoic acid, but also changed its taste, and it is this change in taste that made it a widely used condiment today.
Previously, ketchup had two flavors: bitter and salty. But the ketchup also gained an umami flavor by switching to ripe tomatoes and adding more tomato pulp. It also gains a sour and spicy flavor by adding more vinegar. It tastes twice as sweet without the benzoic acid. The blend of these five flavors makes tomato sauce so delicious.
Tomato sauce used to be made from fresh tomatoes. After the tomatoes are harvested, they are transformed into a very viscous tomato paste through vacuum evaporation. This tomato paste keeps well at room temperature, so you can use it to make tomato sauce all year long.
In the past, tomato sauce was usually packed in glass bottles. Glass bottles can effectively protect tomato sauce from drying out and oxidation. However, because tomato sauce is relatively viscous, it is not easy to pour out of the glass bottle. The newly introduced polyethylene bottles make it easy to squeeze out ketchup. Most ketchup comes in polyethylene bottles.
Tomato paste prices rise sharply, and two listed companies in Xinjiang compete for raw materials in the fields
After several years of painful destocking, tomato paste processing companies finally hoped for a turnaround in the market in 2013. However, domestic tomato paste production giant COFCO Tunhe (600737, SH) encountered new problems.
According to local media reports in Xinjiang, on August 9, 2013, next to a tomato farm in the 143rd Regiment of the Eighth Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, Han Qixin, deputy general manager of the Tunhe Tomato Department of COFCO, held the contract signed with the farmers, but watched helplessly. The picking machine of Xinjiang Tianye (600075, SH) collects tomato raw materials. However, a person from the Xinjiang Tianye Board Secretary's Office told reporters that they had no knowledge of this situation.
As one of the world's three largest tomato sauce planting bases, most tomatoes in Xinjiang, my country, adopt the order farming model. Faced with the rush to buy raw materials caused by the recovery in tomato sauce prices, Qin Gang, deputy secretary-general of the Xinjiang Characteristic Agricultural Products Industry Association, told "Daily "Economic News (Weibo)" reporter said that companies' competition for raw materials shows many problems in the tomato planting contract farming model, and neither companies nor farmers may benefit.