This Limited-Edition Heinz Ketchup Brought An Explosion Of Color To The Classic Condiment

When you're rifling through the condiments shelf in the fridge, with your french fries cooling on a baking sheet, you don't really need to see the label to know that the tall red bottle in the back is ketchup. It makes sense, given that ketchup is made with tomatoes and tomatoes are plastered all over the bottle. In the ketchup business, Heinz is one of the most successful ketchups out there (we also rated it highly in our ranking of 13 popular ketchup brands), and about 25 years ago, the Kraft Heinz Company did something it had never done before: It released its product in new, exciting colors.

In 2000, Heinz released the now-famous EZ Squirt ketchup bottles filled with bright green ketchup. Blastin' Green was the first color to come out, timed with the release of the first "Shrek" movie, though two years later EZ Squirt bottles came in colors like Stellar Blue, Passion Pink, Funky Purple, Totally Teal, Tomato Ketchup Red, and Awesome Orange. There was even a Mystery Color packaged in multicolored bottles, which both thrilled and alarmed customers. Not only was the color of the ketchup in the EZ Squirt bottles new, but so was the 24-ounce bottle, designed with a curvy, ergonomic shape and narrow tip meant to make squeezing fun patterns onto food easier than ever. The Heinz EZ Squirt bottles may rank as one of our favorite, most nostalgic childhood snacks. Sadly, the fun didn't last long.

The EZ Squirt bottles performed well during the first three years of release, selling over 25 million bottles and accounting for Heinz's rise to controlling 60% of the U.S. ketchup market. Despite its popularity, these colored ketchup bottles only lasted six years, disappearing from shelves in 2006. Even though kids loved the connection to popular cartoons like "Shrek" and parents loved the low price point, the EZ Squirt bottle hit the market about the same time that parents started paying attention to ingredients in foods, especially artificial dyes. The hype died down, bottles stopped flying off the shelves, and eventually, EZ Squirt bottles became a relic of the past.

Even today, there's a strong debate about whether or not the wacky colors tasted any differently than regular ketchup. Some users on Reddit remember that "the overwhelming taste of the food coloring" made EZ Squirt much different from regular ketchup. Another Reddit user said they "thought it tasted funny, but it could have totally been a placebo, especially to a child." One Redditor longingly stated that their "life will never be complete" without the colorful EZ Squirt bottles, but another recalled being so grossed out by the funky color that they "literally could not get [themself] to eat it." Since the return of Heinz's EZ Squirt bottles doesn't appear to be on the horizon, we'll have to settle for trying the new spicy ketchup flavors on our fries instead.