Whether with fries or bratwurst: for many, ketchup rounds off the dish. According to the Öko-Test, however, not all manufacturers run smoothly. The market leader in particular caught the eye.
Frankfurt/Main – For the magazine Eco-Test the barbecue season can start with nine ketchups. Of the 20 varieties tested for the March 2023 edition, this is only around every second bottle. Two very good products are recommended as clear test winners: the organic ketchup from “Zwergenwiese” (3.29 euros for 500 ml) and the cheap product from the discounter Penny from Dawtona (1.69 euros for 500 ml).
Seven other ketchups score “good”. But there were a few things to complain about in the other eleven grades (twice satisfactory, seven sufficient, and one each poor and unsatisfactory). A well-known brand name also stands out.
Ketchup in the Öko-Test: These are the problems of the products
One point of criticism is the high sugar content in the products of some suppliers. The “leader” in the test is full of sweeteners with 25.5 g per 100 ml – clearly too much for the Öko-Test. For comparison: The manufacturer with the lowest value only needs 13 g per 100 ml for a good taste.
The second major shortcoming is not sweet, but poisonous: the testers encountered sometimes very high levels of the mold toxin alternariol, which can come from overripe or even moldy tomatoes and is noisy Eco-Test could also damage the human genome. The mold toxin tenuazonic acid also occasionally appears in tested ketchup bottles.
Ketchup in the Öko-Test: Test product exceeds mold toxin many times over
The EU has set guidelines specifically for monitoring Alternaria toxins that food may contain. This is 10 micrograms per kilogram (µg/kg) in processed tomato products. A value of 47 µg/kg alternariol was found in one of the 20 test products, which corresponds to a multiple of the reference value. This is none other than market leader Heinz Ketchup.
| Dwarf Giant (Very Good) | Ener Bio by Rossmann (Sufficient) |
| Penny Own Brand (Very Good) | Papa Joe’s (Adequate) |
| Delicatessen from Aldi (Good) | Heinz (insufficient) |
According to Lebensmittelzeitung, the Kraft Heinz group dominates the German market for branded ketchup with a share of almost 50 percent. The group has not yet responded to the notification of the test results by Öko-Test. The consumer magazine also found the toxins in two other tested products; albeit in much smaller amounts. Among other things, with the well-known “Papa Joe’s” ketchup.
Ketchup in the Öko-Test: Where do the tomatoes for the sauce come from?
Eco-Test also draws attention to the working conditions under which the tomatoes for the ketchup are obtained. According to the United Nations, around a million Muslim forced laborers still work in China, among other places, in fields around Xinjiang, the main growing region for tomatoes. Most of them are Uyghurs held in labor camps. Here, too, the manufacturer of Heinz ketchup Kraft was the only company not to provide information on the supply chains, criticized Öko-Test.
Öko-Test’s tip: make your own ketchup so you know what’s in it
There can hardly be better transparency than the do-it-yourself principle. The consumer magazine Öko-Test also advises consumers to make the sauce themselves. Add 150 g of tomato paste, 100 ml of water, 2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar, and puree with half a tsp of salt and paprika. This can then be sweetened as sparingly as possible.
Another report from tagesschau.de explains the working conditions of workers in the “vegetable garden of Europe”, the Spanish region of Almería. In southern Spain, where German supermarket chains also get their products from, wages are being withheld, among other things, and workers have to handle pesticides without protective clothing. (lp/dpa/rku)