Buyer's guide to brown sauces & ketchups

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Best Buys as of Jan/Feb 2007

As our ratings are constantly updated, it is possible that company ratings on the ethiscore website may have changed since this report was written.

Meridian comes out best followed by Granovita and Whole Earth. All three brands produce organic varieties.

Brand	Rating
Meridian ketchup [O]	13.5
Granovita brown sauce [A, O]	12.5
Whole Earth ketchup [O]	12.5
Branston sauce	7
Heinz Organic Tomato Ketchup [O]	5
Daddies brown sauce	4
Heinz Tomato Ketchup	4
HP sauce	4

The ratings on this scorecard were last updated from our database at www.ethiscore.org on 22 May 2008. The higher the rating, the more ethical the brand.

Red & brown sauce

The most well-known brands of sauce - Heinz Tomato Ketchup, HP and Daddies - are all owned by HJ Heinz. The company is currently embroiled in criticism from the Transport and General Workers Union for shifting production of HP Sauce from the UK to the Netherlands with the loss of 120 jobs.(1) There are companies offering organic, more natural sauces, like Granovita and Whole Earth, but these are also owned by fairly large companies these days. Meridian Foods management bought the company out of larger Greencore in 2005. None of the companies covered received ECRA’s best marks for environmental reporting or supply chain codes covering workers’ rights. Glass bottles are much more likely to find their way into the recycling.

References: 1 www.tgwu.org.uk 9/5/06

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