As Heinz completes the roll out of its revised HP Sauce line in North America, the availability of pre-Heinz production HP Sauce starts to dwindle on store shelves. As I mentioned in my previous post, I intended on buying up as much of the old stock as I could, citing the inferior taste of the new sauce as my key motivator. When the opportunity next presented itself, I went out and bought 7 bottles of the old stock HP Sauce at a local grocery store and brought them home where my wife went about, completely unphased, at putting the bottles and other groceries into the cupboard for future use (bless her!).

A short time later I decided that these bottles would be better suited next to my ‘all things HP Sauce’ collection downstairs, that way I could keep a closer eye on things after all! I proceeded to move all but one bottle downstairs and and as luck would have it, one of the HP Sauce bottles in the fridge needed replacing shortly thereafter (we do tend to go through it!). When my wife went to search the cupboard to fetch a replacement bottle, she gasped when she could only find one left! She then quickly closed the cupboard door, turned and approached me with a rather accusatory tone…

Now if we were to pause here for a moment to let ones mind wander (as I am so very prone to doing), one could easily imagine the impending conversation between my wife and I as one Tom and Barbara Good would have in an episode of The Good Life/Good Neighbours. The Good Life, or Good Neighbours as it’s known in North America, is a wonderful 1970’s British sitcom whose premise is to follow a not so typical couple named Tom and Barbara who’ve decided to live ‘off the grid’ in their typical suburban home in Surbiton, London. Living off the grid is of course not without its pitfalls and as a result Tom and Barbara are always under pressure to conserve every precious resource and to stretch every last penny. How would these two react they too were faced with the dilemma of having to conserve HP Sauce along with everything else?

Barbara: Distraught, Barbara stands next to an open cupboard. “Tom? Can you come here please?” she asks.
Tom: Tom walks over from the kitchen table. “Yes my little sparrow? What is it?”
Barbara: “The HP Sauce. It’s all gone!”
Tom: “Ahh….yes.” he blushes.
Barbara: Shocked, she accuses Tom “Don’t you ‘Ahh…yes’ me Tom Good! What have you done with them?” she says, striking at him with a tea towel.
Tom: “Now before you say anything, you must hear me out!” Tom says, standing his ground “It’s all in the name of efficiency you see…”
Barbara: “Oh damn the efficiency Tom! This is HP! You can’t just…rationalize HP Sauce like that? I mean, it’s just not right is it? You can’t just mark it down in the ledger next to the onions and the potatoes!” Then it occurs to her. “Where did you put them??” she demands.
Tom: “Now look here Barbara!” Tom starts, “We can’t just keep eating…”
Barbara: “Where are they?!” she interrupts, tickling Tom into submission.
Tom: “he he he…they’re…”
Barbara: “Where!” she laughs
Tom: “Alright alright!” he submits. “I’ve put them…down..” he mumbles.
Barbara: “Where? Where did you put them Tom?” she says, unable to control her snickering.
Tom: “Well…I’ve put them in the cellar cupboard haven’t I?” he grumps.
Barbara: “The cellar cupboard!” she exclaims, laughing hysterically “Did you put them on the middle shelf or further down..behind the filing cabinet?” she says, biting her lower lip. Her eyes light up “You DID didn’t you!”
Tom: “Now see here, I did that purely for security purposes!”
Tom and Barbara both make a mad dash for the door leading to the basement…

Moments later, next door neighbours and dear friends Jerry and Margo Leadbetter appear at the Goods kitchen to find Tom and Barbara squeeling & shouting, running around the table all the while squirting each other with bottles of HP Sauce.

Jerry and Margo: “What on earth are you two doing??” They both exclaim.
Tom and Barbara: “Rationing HP Sauce!!!!”

Of course, my wife and I didn’t end up running around the kitchen table in a big ’squirt-em-up’ with bottles of HP Sauce, but the resulting tone to our conversation was very much the same as my imagined Good Neighbours episode! By the way, I ended up moving my stash to another hiding place which she has since discovered! Drat!

While this bit of fun is all well and good - after all, never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that in June 2007 I’d be walking about the house plotting where to hide my cache of precious HP Sauce bottles; the sad fact remains that Heinz thought it necessary to change the HP Sauce recipe in the first place, thus ruining the brand for me.

As I stated above, I purchased 7 bottles of pre-Heinz HP Sauce at a local grocery store and while the expiry dates on these bottles goes well into late 2008, I hold no expectations that these ‘magnificent 7′ will last anywhere near that long. It IS barbecue season afterall! Determined to get my hands on a few more bottles, I set out once again to top up my supplies and in the process I made an interesting discovery.

I went back to the local grocery store which had a healthy supply of both old and new stock only a short 2 weeks ago. This time however, the HP Sauce original variety was completely missing. Had they had a sudden run on HP Sauce? I thought that a bit odd so I went to a larger store a few kilometres away where I discovered the same thing! The rest of the shelf was completely stocked with the other HP varieties (Chicken & Rib, Bold) but the spot where HP original was to be was completely bare. Was this the time to start panicking?

I then went to a local Safeway. Same thing. I went to another..and another and another! In all, I went to 6 Safeway outlets, each one had absolutely no stock of HP Sauce original variety. I reasoned that unless there is someone else in the Winnipeg area who is as passionate about HP as I am, there is simply no other explanation than to assume that Safeway had for whatever reason, pulled the stock off their shelves. I have since written to Canada Safeway requesting an explanation.

Having failed at finding any older stock HP Sauce at the large grocery chains, I ventured over to have a look at some local ‘mom & pop’ shops and behold, my shopping basket soon overflowed with the older HP Sauce original variety! Curiously, most of these shops also carried the new Heinz produced bottles whereas the large Safeway stores had none. In the end I cleaned out a couple of these small shops and my basement closet is now well stocked and should see us through the coming months with ease.

The remaining unanswered question is, what is one to do once this supply runs out? Unless consumer awareness suddenly picks up on and is outraged by what Heinz has done with our beloved HP Sauce, I honestly don’t hold out much hope that Heinz will revert back to the older recipe which we’ve so enjoyed for all these years. Yes, it may be time to Bring on the Branston! (That one’s for you Steve)

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 21st, 2007 at 2:33pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.