There is some good sauce in this world, after all. Ask Elvis Francois, a sailor from the Caribbean country of Dominica who was stranded in the sea for 24 days after his sailboat was washed away in December off the Sint Maarten island. Francois, adrift in the big, blue, lonely sea, survived on the meagre rations on his boat – a bottle of Heinz ketchup, garlic powder, Maggi soup cubes and rainwater he collected with a cloth. The remarkable story of survival came full tomato when, last week, Kraft Heinz Company, the world’s fifth-largest food company and prime saviour of our castaway hero, got in touch with Francois. He had to abandon boat while being finally rescued by the Colombian navy – after Francois had used a mirror to catch the eye of a pilot in an overhead plane.
The media, with their fondness for ‘frivolous’ details, had widely reported (throughout the Caribbean) of the consumables Francois consumed to survive his epic sojourn. Heinz heard – and got in touch with our Robinson Crusoe last Friday. The company is now providing Francois, no, not with a lifetime supply of ketchup the way Domino’s provided Olympic silver medallist weightlifter Mirabai Chanu a lifetime supply of pizzas, but a spanking, new sailboat. Easy publicity, you say? Heinz you very much, says Elvis. Heinz Tomato Ketchup 1, Nestle Maggi 0 (so far).
