Back in June, lovers of condiments everywhere across the world held their breath. We all know Heinz for one thing: ketchup. The red, tangy stuff. Yum. But back in those early summer days, Heinz made an announcement about another one of their sauces that made quite a few waves online. You probably already know what I'm talking about.
Remember Salad Cream? The stuff you'd very occasionally use to ruin a salad, but made french fries, burgers and plenty more way better? Well, the powers that be at Heinz HQ decided that the name didn't work. So they changed it to 'Sandwich Cream' - which, as you might expect, didn't go down too well with the collective condiment congregation.
Slamming the idea as something that might have been thought up by a "hipster", people got really worked up about the name change, but with just 14 percent of their sales reportedly going on salads, you can understand why they thought to change the name.
Nevertheless, if it wasn't something to complain about before, it's definitely not something to complain about now. After listening carefully to the dissent of the salad cream-loving people on the internet (or sifting through the mountains of hate messages on Twitter), Heinz have made a huge announcement.
For this most important of announcements, Heinz recruited their Head of Feedback Jenny Lettuce (which is definitely a real person they didn't make up or anything), and Jenny revealed that despite Heinz's hasty decision, "will of the people" had spoken, and Heinz won't be changing the name of their Salad Cream after all.
A survey had reportedly revealed that 87 percent of consumers wanted the name to stay the same, instead of changing to Fish Finger Sauce, Chip Sauce or Roast Potato Sauce - a good call, if you ask me. In addition to Jenny Lettuce's revelation, Joel Hughes, senior brand manager at Heinz, shed further light on the issue.
"From TV debates to conversations around the dinner table, it seems everyone has a real fondness for not only the iconic, zingy flavour of Heinz Salad Cream, but the name too. Thousands of you shared your thoughts and suggested new ideas, all of which were considered, but it became clear that the British public wanted to keep Heinz Salad Cream, and any other name just wouldn't do. We can't ignore the will of the people, so Heinz Salad Cream is here to stay."
Well there you have it, folks. I guess democracy really does work after all, but after the second U-turn of the year following IHOP's abrupt name change to IHOb (the stupid-sounding International House of Burgers), maybe a brand name change is something we should take with more than a pinch of salt. This could all be some clever marketing.
All I'm saying, is that with Dunkin' Donuts apparently about to drop the 'Donuts' from their name, let's wait and see what happens.