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RSS Feed Panorama16. 09. 09. - 15:00
Heinz face anger over 58th variety
By William Green
Food giants Heinz have been accused of fobbing off Austrian and German customers by selling half-baked tins of beans.
Angry fans claim the tins contain fewer beans than British cans and are served in a thin, watery sauce.
Now a scientific taste test has proved that beanz meanz a rip off - and the firm that boasts 57 varieties is now struggling to explain what it meant with its 58th variety.
Baked beans meant for the British market have had a cult following in Europe for decades so Heinz began to produce "Gebackene Bohnen" for the German language market.
But tests carried out by the Austrian Times with 20 beans fans show the local tins have less beans than the UK version served in a sauce with less tomatoes.
Editor David Rogers said: "The readers were correct. We did a poll which found that many people felt the Austrian Heinz baked beans were substandard and when we tested them we had to agree.
"Our testers reported that the Austrian baked beans were a pale copy of the English original."
British student Susana Vega - one of the 20 strong taste test team - said: "If you shake the tins the contents of the Austrian tin sloshes around which it doesn't with the British tin.
"The sauce when you pour it out is a lot more watery and it's a much paler, watery looking colour than the thick tomato colour of the British beans."
Another taster Kathryn Quinn, 25, from Cumbria that now lives in Vienna said: "I lived off beans at University in Birmingham but the beans here taste horrible. It's a shame as they were cheap and good for you. It's just as well I can afford something better from the local cooking here."
According to the Heinz labels the British tin is more than half full with beans - while the Austrian version contains less than half.
And the British beans have five per cent more tomato in their sauce than the Austrians who have more water, sugar and salt instead.
British supermarket owner Johnny Szewczuk said: "When the local supermarket chains started selling these other Heinz baked beans we assumed that there wouldn't be much demand for the genuine British beans which we sell.
"But they have now become our best-selling item because many more people are aware of the product and the word has got out that British Heinz baked beans are far superior.
"Otherwise people wouldn't be coming here and paying more for imported Heinz baked beans. Some people come and take away whole boxes at a time."
Customer Hannes Bauer. 32, said: "My kids don't like the Gebackene Bohnen - it's Baked beans for us every time even if it costs a few cents more. The British ones don't run over the whole plate - they stay where you put them - and they taste better. My kids and I agree."
Austrian Times
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Robin Sharp wrote on 28. 09. 2009 from Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, UK about "Heinz face anger over 58t..."
I was surprised to read about Heinz's cheap trick, as far as Austrian baked bean fans is concerned, in a recent edition of the London 'Metro' newspaper, following a report in the Austrian Times. I have been a recreational collector of baked bean labels for more than 25 years and I have a Heinz Baked Bean label in German in my collection, gathered some years back. This was obviously produced for the German (Austrian?) market, but on closer inspection of the label, I see that the beans were produced in Holland. So, I'm wondering which recipe Heinz used for the Dutch~German palate at that time? Robin Sharp (aka 'Mr Bean' - and, according to BBC Look East, An Authority on Baked Bean Labels') See http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2330487.ece PS I don't suppose someone could let me have a label from an Austrian Heinz tin, to add to my collection?? Thanks!
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