Heinz Is About To Debut Coke-Style Remix Dispensers For Sauce

Here's a joke for you: what do Heinz ketchup and soda have in common? They both come out of fountains. Ordinarily, this joke would make absolutely zero sense whatsoever but, thanks to Heinz's newest invention, you'll soon be able to see the connection pretty clearly.

On May 17, the news broke that Heinz — producer of the classic ketchup found at most restaurants across the United States — is introducing a brand-new type of ketchup dispenser. Although this normally wouldn't be ground-breaking news, what's unique about this ketchup dispenser is that it will allow customers to "mix," or combine, multiple different flavors of sauces together. 

These dispensers, known as "Heinz Remix," will not just dispense standard ketchup, but a collection of sauces and flavorings known as "bases" and "flavor enhancers." "Base" sauces include ketchup, Heinz 52 sauce, ranch dressing, and BBQ sauce. Each of these sauces can be combined with a "flavor enhancer," such as buffalo, mango, jalapeno, and chipotle. Although none of the "base" sauces can be combined, one can add as many different flavor enhancers to a base sauce as they want, leading to an estimated 200 different types of combinations. This means that, should you desire, you can have buffalo ranch dressing on your burger or chipotle-flavored ketchup for your fries. 

But while this idea of combining your ketchup with a dozen different flavors, doesn't this all sound very familiar? It should, because Coca-Cola actually came up with almost the exact same idea over a decade ago. 

In 2009, Coca-Cola introduced its "Freestyle" line of soda dispensers. These machines were marketed with the idea that customers could mix different flavors of soda together to create any sort of flavor they can imagine. These Freestyle machines seem to have provided some key inspiration to Heinz Foods, whose own "Heinz Remix" machines, offer customers the same customizability with their ketchup, ranch dressing, or barbeque sauce. Heinz seems confident in its newest dispenser, having collaborated with tech giant Microsoft to develop the new Heinz Remix machine.

"We've been on this journey to make innovation the number one growth driver across our business," said head of disruption Alan Kleinerman to CNBC. "To do that, we knew we needed to operate differently than we had in the past, to think bigger, to be more consumer-centric." By introducing more customization into the world of condiments and encouraging customer interaction with their products, Heinz hopes to capitalize on what made Coca-Cola's Freestyle machines so popular.

Of course, as the machine has yet to debut — with the first unveiling taking place in Chicago at the National Restaurant Association Show later this week — there are still many more tests and upgrades needed until the Heinz Remix dispenser is officially introduced to the market. Until then, customers are still free to mix Heinz ketchup manually with whatever they want, no matter how conventional or unconventional said combinations may be.