[LINK] "French's ketchup plans to move production to Ontario"

[rfmcdonald]

The Toronto Star's Vanessa Lu reports on the latest stage in the ketchup wars, with French's planning to shift production of ketchup as well as the harvesting of local tomatoes to Leamington.

French’s ketchup, which has made headlines for boasting of using Canadian grown tomatoes from the Leamington area, says it’s now looking to move production across the border from Ohio.

“We are currently in negotiations on moving bottling and expanding our food service business to Canada,” said Elliott Penner, president of the French’s Food Company, owned by British conglomerate Reckitt Benckiser.

An announcement is expected in the next week. It plans to purchase 8.1 million kilograms of tomato paste for the 2016 growing season – up from anticipated order of 3.1 million kilograms just a week ago.

At stake is the ability to truly declare itself Canadian made. Although its ketchup packets are made in Toronto with Canadian tomatoes, French’s ketchup bottles sold in Canada have in very small print on the back label that they are imported.