Ketchup bottle, George W. Bush, 2004 | Smithsonian Institution
Description
The 2004 presidential race was between the Republican incumbent President George W. Bush and his Democratic challenger John Kerry, senator from Massachusetts. Because Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz, was related to the Heinz family who founded a food processing company, a group of New York City Republicans started their own ketchup company to avoid eating Heinz ketchup.
Using a label picturing George Washington, W Ketchup was introduced in 2004 with the advertising slogan “You don’t support Democrats. Why should your Ketchup?” (Teresa Heinz was not a majority stakeholder in the Heinz Company.) The product was distributed through internet sales and no proceeds were contributed to political campaigns. The W Ketchup company ceased production in 2015.
Trivia time:
Hunter Biden met his business associate Devon Archer through Christopher Heinz, John Kerry’s stepson and heir to the food company.
Archer and Heinz were friends in Yale and founded the private equity firm Rosemont Capital together.
Archer, Heinz and Hunter Biden then founded Rosemont Seneca Partners together.
Hunter Biden and Devon Archer would then go on to serve on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy firm. Heinz reportedly ended his business relations with both because of this.
In 2016, Vice President Joe Biden got the Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin dismissed by threatening to withhold a $1 billion dollar loan to Ukraine. Shokin had been the top prosecutor investigating the corruption case of Burisma Holdings.
In 2019, Trump would get impeached by the Democrats for threatening to withhold a $400 million military aid to Zelensky unless he agreed to investigate the Bidens and their connections to Burisma.
It’s crazy to think about the whole connection between the Heinz food company, the Democrats and the war in Ukraine.
The Ketchup War