The real unsung hero of the Primal Kitchen story is unsweetened ketchup. The mayo was straightforward. There was nothing difficult about making a mayonnaise with avocado oil—it just hadn't been done before. The actual recipe was quite standard, using pretty much the same proportions, just with better ingredients. But making an unsweetened ketchup that actually tasted good took finesse. It took a ton of work, a lot of failures, and insane amounts of testing.
I constantly hear from parents that it's the only ketchup their kids will use and that it has acted as a "gateway" condiment for establishing a more refined, mature palate. Regular ketchup is so sweet that it sets kids onto the refined ultra-processed sugar pipeline—often for life. Primal Kitchen Organic Unsweetened Ketchup actually tastes like tomatoes.
Another underappreciated use for our ketchup is as a base for sauces and recipes. Because it is tomato concentrate and vinegar with some spices and zero added sugar, you can build off of it. Add some PK Mayo for fry sauce. Add some olive oil, garlic, shallots, and chicken broth as a sauce base. Zero added sugar means dozens of culinary paths open up before you.
And so today, Primal Kitchen Organic Unsweetened Ketchup is still the product I'm probably most proud of.
