Was at a mates place today and asked for some ketchup for my meat pie.. when he handed me an open bottle from the pantry! I’ve always kept sauce once opened in the fridge. It got me thinking, who is right in this situation and where does the OzBargain think tank sit on this subject?
Where Do You Keep Your Open Bottle of Tomato Sauce?
Iwantthebestprice on 25/10/2023 - 20:15
Last edited 27/10/2023 - 14:07 by 1 other user
Last edited 27/10/2023 - 14:07 by 1 other user
Poll Options
- 642Always keep in fridge
- 248Always keep in the pantry
- 24I only have BBQ sauce
- 2I hate these sauces
Comments
- 1
- 2
has so much salt in it,
& sugar
And vinegar
Yep, all three of these act together, as with pickling generally
Oh good. I put my pickles in the fridge.
And a dash of tomato
A 'dash' is generous.
Thought the same until i found it infested with little white grubs. I guess fruit fly laid on the top of the squeeze top and they got in. You may never know they are there.
Wonder how many generations of grubs and flies they had been through. Must have been a whole new ecosystem in there.
After a few generations, they could develop into bugs that can only eat tomato sauce, a whole new speciesI've always thought, if the bugs want it, it's got some kind of nutritional value. McDonald's is so weird that nothing but humans and my badly parented dog will touch it.
Prefer the taste of it out of the fridge rather than room temperature rather than a "need" to keep it in the fridge.
Yeah? Naa.
It has salt and sugar but not enough to preserve it.
It even states on the bottle "Refrigerate after opening".
And my axe!
The food scientists at Heinz wrote "keep refrigerated after opening" on the bottle. I have no reason to doubt their wisdom. Bakeries can maybe get away with leaving them out all day because they get used, washed, and refilled so often with their hundreds of customers.
I reckon it’s more of an ass covering exercise than anything else. I’ve never refrigerated sauce. Some times takes 6 months for me to use a bottle and never got sick from it, or smelled any weird odours or seen any sketchy colours or growths. It’s like exactly the same 6 months after opening as on day 1.
Damn what bakery you going to that doesn’t ration out and sell their sauce in those frankly barbaric tiny squeeze to open packs?
Actually most bakeries I work with do charge for sauce. They've worked out the costs of things, maybe not a true cost of goods produced, but they know enough that a pepper pie needs to cost more than the same pie without pepper in it. Personally I think they should charge extra for the pies and stuff to cover the cost of sauce. And they should charge 10 cents extra for both meat pies, instead of 20 cents extra for the one with the fancy pepper corns in it. Let the pepper-less pie eaters subsidise the pepper eaters. In fact making their menus would be a whole lot easier if they had categories of prices instead of individually priced everything. Let a whole bunch of people subsidise others to even out all the prices.
But alas, they don't like this kind of thinking. One eater subsiding another is an alien concept, so charging extra for sauce is the norm.
One day we're going to figure out why "make sure the person using the service absolutely isn't the one paying for it, others should subsidise it" is your default.
@CrowReally: If you zoom back a bit and see that the bakery is selling 100 beef pies per day and 2 egg and beef pies per day, you'll see that the beef eaters are subsidising the egg eaters. Like 50% of the egg pies will be thrown out each day, vs 0-3% of the beef pies. Is it fair that the egg pie eaters are effectively being subsidised by the far more popular beef pie eaters? I think it's nice that the bakery is catering to the 0-2 people per day who come in for an egg pie. Would be easier not to sell them at all, but the bakery caters to their unusual tastes by making them and putting them in the warmer at lunch time anyway, and inevitably throwing half of them away. If the true cost of the egg pies were charged, including the wastage, then the people buying them probably wouldn't buy them at all. I want to live in the world where whole categories of products have the same price and where people can get their unusual tastes catered to, even if it means they are technically getting a lot more value than people with mainstream tastes.
@AustriaBargain: Basically a lot of nonsense and spurious assumptions (bakeries shrugging and continuing to make too many of type X of pie despite the fact half them go unsold every day, and that somehow being connected to the price of pie Y. In reality they base supply off demand, and unit pricing off the cost of the components.
If beef pies at bakeries are $5 and mushroom truffle pies are $10 (each with $1 of profit), your model to compete with them would be to open a rival bakery with a single price based off what volumes of pies your competitors sold.
So you do some math, figure out the subsidised price is $7 and sell both pies at that price. Great model, right?
No, because the only pies people are willing to buy off you are the mushroom truffle ones, which is a loss for you. The people who want beef pies are buying them next door for $5.
It's just a bad idea.
@CrowReally: Well no, I’d probably make the beef pie a regular category pie for $5, and truffle pie a “gourmet” pie for $10, if there was such a large difference in cost to make
@AustriaBargain: Oh well of course I mean, why would you mix those two sorts of pies together in subsidised pricing, after all, I mean that's probably why the example didn't work, right? I was subsidising the wrong pie!
I wonder if a $5 beef pie ($1 profit) and a $7 egg and bacon pie ($1 profit) would have the correct result if we set a price of $6 each pie?
Selling egg and bacon pies is now a Breakeven/no profit per pie. And no one is buying your $6 beef pies because they're $5 next door. You now have zero profit. (This is not the desired outcome).
Your theory of "selling expensive items cheaper and cheap items at a bigger markup than my competitors" is a non-starter.
@CrowReally: If you only sell between 0-2 egg pies a day then it’s a rounding error compared to the hundreds of beef pies. You wouldn’t raise the price of 200 beef pies a dollar each to offset two egg pies. Equalising the price would have benefits, like being able to include the two egg pie buyers in the standard value meal, which makes more than a dollar profit if they upgrade to the value meal.
@AustriaBargain: Can you see how my business model works off simple easy to follow concepts (pies cost $X, sale price is $(X + 1), profit is $1. I don't need to worry about selling only a few of one type of pie to figure out what my prices should be? I make $1 profit per pie, no matter what type. Easy to explain, easy to understand, and it works.
Can you also see that word answer you gave me of "well if you're selling 200 beef pies and one or two egg ones and you made too many egg ones anyway and we are rounding off to a few% then you can make a meal deal and..".is just a giant bowl of word salad? I mean, value meal? Where the f did that come from?
Why don't your brilliant price ideas work on my "pies cost either $4 or $6 to make and thus they have different prices" model? How come your ideas only work when we don't use numbers to check them?
@CrowReally: Most takeaway food places I've seen offer things like $8 for a pie and coffee, which seems like a good deal, but coffees are very high margin so if they weren't buying a coffee anyway then it's a lot more profit than just a pie whether the pie costs $5.10 or $5.80. And pizza places, conveyer oven places anyway, seem to copy Dominos model of having a value range for $15 each or whatever. Do you think the cheese value pizza costs exactly the same to make as the meatlovers pizza? Of course not, but simplifying the menu makes selling them all easier. McDonald's have the luxury of charging an upgrade for a value meal, but they also have the luxury of having the exact same menu in hundreds of stores.
@AustriaBargain: Okay, so now we are discussing meal deals.
Fine.
Why would the egg pie need to have the same regular selling price as a beef pie to be included in a "buy some extra things and get this price" meal deal?
I agree their different costs will be contributing different amounts of profit to the total sale, but the entire point to meal deals are you're including several items of different costs to hit a predetermined price point. If coffee has a criminal markup then I'm happy to sell either of my pies (beef or egg/bacon) with a coffee as a $10 meal deal …. But my regular pie prices are still different.
None of this affects the selling price of a regular (non meal deal) egg vs beef pie.
So, again: Why don't your brilliant price ideas work on my "pies cost either $4 or $6 to make and thus they have different prices" model?
@CrowReally: Because if you sell 5-10 a week, vs over a thousand beef pies, then it doesn't really matter. You can group similarly priced products, average out their price, and make the UX of choosing from the menu a lot simpler. Instead of giving customers dozens of value propositions, you can give them just three. And yeah some pies will be sold for a bit less than the usual COGS, some will be sold a bit more, and others will be just about right. But it'll all work out the same in the end as far as the owner is concerned and thousands of customers will have a better shopping experience.
@AustriaBargain: I'd love for you to walk into a pie shop and tell them you've got some ideas that might cause marginal losses on some of their items "but the UX of choosing from your menu will be a lot cleaner".
Because a pie shop's number of items/menu listing is usually the biggest barrier to customer engagement, right?
Now all we need to do is store the menu on a blockchain and we'll have the ultimate "solutions to problems that never existed and make things much worse"
@CrowReally: I make menus for small businesses and some of them do have such a pricing structure others do not. They don't pay for UX advice so they get what they ask for. Usually they don't know what to ask for, they just want what they already got. The owners aren't used to dealing with designers. If they had one under their direct employ they wouldn't know what to do with them. And they probably should consult on UX tbh. Their national chain competitors, competing for the same customers and the same cash, certainly do.
@AustriaBargain: If you do creative/UX work for a living, you are absolutely a valuable resource on this forum when people have discussions about design work, layouts and the rest (graphic design is my passion). I look forward to discussing fonts with you on a future occasion (I have about 50,000 on my computer, mostly Windings).
In that same vein, however, maybe today is a good time to put the "I have ideas about what things should cost and which people will be subsidising them" ideas to rest, in a shallow grave.
@CrowReally: I assume you paid the license for all those fonts?
And I do think things should be subsidised. And things are subsidised. If a place sells a cheaper version of something using the same kitchen, the same staff, sold in the same shop, then it's effectively being subsidised by the more expensive things made in the same kitchen, but the same staff, sold over the same counter. Economy seats on planes are subsidised by first and business class. When you buy a movie ticket and bring your own snacks, you're being subsidised by other people who buy the popcorn and soda combo. The cinema wouldn't exist without selling those combos, so of course you're being subsidised if you don't buy them yourself. The flight wouldn't be profitable if it only had economy seats, you wouldn't be flying anywhere without first and business class. When you use Adblock on YouTube, you are being subsidised by people who don't use Adblock. And when you don't use Adblock but also don't click on ads, you are being subsidised by people who do click on ads. That's how our world works. The idea that everyone is paying for exactly what they get is rubbish.
@AustriaBargain: Christ, no.
Items are sold to take a profit, and then that item has paid for itself. Items with larger profit margins aren't "subsidising" items with smaller profit margins. Two dollar stores don't need to occasionally sell a pallet of printer ink to make sure they can afford to buy more generic packs of gum or playing cards or whatever.
Economy seats on planes are subsidised by first and business class.
Yeah, RyanAir (like most airlines) can only run its planes once first class is full because that then subsidised all those cheap seats down the back.
Stick to what you're good at, Comic Sans/Papyrus font and clipart.
@CrowReally: Papyrus is good enough for James Cameron's Avatar series, they've made billions each so far.
I don't refrigerate sauce and I'm still alive to tell the tale, but I think the tiny squeeze packets are different to what the OP is asking about.
The squeezy sauce packets are airtight from the date they are made, they can be stored unopen at room temperature much like how sauce bottles are sold all around the world in supermarkets.
Bakeries can maybe get away with leaving them out all day because they get used, washed, and refilled so often with their hundreds of customers
LOL…. Used yes, refilled yes, washed, hahahah no
Fridge but only coz cold sauce on piping hot pie is unbeatable
Sauce is for plebs, the ketchup goes in the fridge once opened
On my food
There was a study that was shown on tv, apparently wiping the nozzle down with a paper towel introduced more bacteria, vs leaving it crusty.
Iirc, storing in the fridge was marginally better than leaving it on the shelf, but the key was not to wipe it down after using.
What about licking the top after closing?
What about eye contact though?
What?
What?Always make eye contact when eating a banana
How could wiping it with a clean paper towel introduce more bacteria?
Something about the crusty bits stopping any air from getting inside the bottle
Wouldn't closing the nozzle twist thing also stop air from getting inside?
@AustriaBargain: Air isn't the issue, the bacteria can still form on the nozzle tip. Leaving the sauce to dry on the tip works best because bacteria won't be able to survive on the salty sweet dried sauce.
This was tested on WTFAQ which you can watch on ABC ivew.
@Loopholio: Exactly what i was doing, don't recommend it after finding the bottle infested with fruit fly lavae. I expect the residue on top was encouraging for them.
@tekisei: @tonka Well yeah, fruit flies would love some free sauce! Flies too.
If you must leave the sauce out, after each use clean the nozzle with detergent, rinse and wipe with a clean towel. Or, you know, put it in the fridge where it belongs. I forgot to add put it in the fridge in my previous comment because doing so seems obvious to me.
@Loopholio: These sorts of things, essentially preserved fruits would be intended originally to preserve foods before refrigeration. So no need to assume it's obvious. Tomato sauce has been around long before refrigeration. The lesson I have with the larvae, is make sure the nozzle is closed except when actually being poured. Don't let it sit open at the barbie at all. As far as the bacteria goes, love some bacteria with my sauce, great for the immune system I can't recall ever giving myself food poisoning.
Most paper towels are sitting out on the open bench collecting bacteria all day long. you are in effect wiping bacteria onto the bottle.
This
After opening it and using it I am putting bottle back at the shelf. Usually in Coles.
I like to put it on the shelf in JB Hi-fi instead just to introduce some chaos to people's day.
True story
The chuck truck made a lot of people sick with their community sauce bottle they now sell packet sauce.
Heinz UK tweet (now X) states it goes in the fridge.
https://twitter.com/HeinzUK/status/1673651138774589444?lang=…
Bloody seppos ruining our language. It's dead horse and you keep it in the cupboard.
Mr burns: Ketchup? Catsup? ….I'm in way over my head!
Where do you keep your open bottle of tomato sauce?
Up my bu tler's pantry…
Ask Jeeves?
Warmer months = In the fridge
Cooler months = In the pantry
You are un-Strayan if you don't keep the dead horse under your pillow
dead horse under your pillow
“I'm Gonna Make Him an Offer He Can't Refuse.”
Wait so all of you who put it in the fridge do you also put the large 2l or 4l bottle you use to refill the small bottle in the fridge as well?
Yes, it lives in my vegetable drawer in fridge :D
I don't eat nearly enough sauce to buy it by the litre.
Un-Austrayan.
Mine sits in the pantry, still alive.
It's been 8 hours since you stated this, just checking you didn't jinx yourself
.Okay, it looks like we've lost Drakesy, and we need to start refrigerating sauce.
Plus someone has taken over their account and started commenting. They need to warn people of these dangers on the sauce bottle.
Just commenting from the afterlife, i stand corrected.
Are any of the cupboard voters still posting?
Heinz said to maintain the quality, tomato sauce should go into the fridge. But due to the acidity of the sauce, it's shelf stable.
I keep mine in the fridge, the person I live with keeps theirs in the cupboard. To date I haven't had a bottle explode unlike theirs that normally explodes every 8 months or so.
maybe some people don't have the nasal sensitivity to smell the fecundness of tomato sauce that is not refrigerated.
to me, tomato sauce left out of the fridge develops an odour . it's a tartish odour.
where as, my daughter isn't bothered by it, and can't smell the odour.
I have my own tomato sauce that I label and keep in the fridge, and she has her own bottle and stores it however she likes.
I have my own tomato sauce that I label and keep in the fridge, and she has her own bottle and stores it however she likes.
Not sure why, but father and daughter each having their own tomato sauce bottle in the same household sounds funny to me.. 😆
how about a mother and daughter each having their own tomato sauce bottle in the same household ?
That would be funny too! lol. I think my mind is just telling me that you guys have had a few discussions on the topic and somehow came to the agreement that you'd have one each! haha
If you don't like it outside and your daughter doesn't mind it being in the fridge, why not just have one bottle and keep it in the fridge?
you guys have had a few discussions on the topic
bearing on fisticuffs .
definitely separate bottles (refrigerated Vs disgusting-gross-fermented-spoilt-garbage) are necessary
it's a tartish odour.
Natural fermentation, right?
Tomatoes eventually get to a soft state, the skin thins out and if handled will burst very easily. Often accompanied by a sour smell from the pulp and juice.
Not pleasant, into the compost.yes, Natural fermentation.
despite the salt content , the sugar will ferment in warm conditions
Most people seem to think it's about bacterial spoilage, but the fridge keeps the sauce nicer regardless.
All your pantry oils will go rancid quicker in the pantry than fridge, for example. Maybe you don't care, but I have the fridge space so I keep anything with oils, or emulsifiers, etc, in the fridge so it's nicer for longer.
I don't keep oils past their useby date and it takes a lot longer than the useby date for them to start going rancid. similarly tomato sauce with the amount of salt and vinegar in it is perfectly fine on the shelf till its expiry date. Personally I buy in container sizes where they will only ever be in my pantry a few months at most anyway.
it takes a lot longer than the useby date for them to start going rancid
unsaturated oils will start going rancid quite quickly, it's just most people don't taste the tiny amounts of rancidity. any seeds or seed oils should be kept in the fridge for optimal quality.
Pantry.
That's the Rosella glass bottle and my HP. Have never in all my days put it in the fridge.
If you leave it out then after about a year or so the taste goes a little funny. I just keep a big bottle in the fridge which I use to refill a smaller bottle that sits on the bench and lasts a couple weeks before needing to be refilled, nobody wants to put cold sauce on their food.
Opened my fridge last night to find a bottle of ketchup in there, but I keep the sauce in the pantry. I don't know what I'm doing.
I gave up buying tomato sauce because there are so many delicious BBQ sauces available now. I keep BBQ sauce in the fridge.
I ended up buying one of those lazy Susan things for my BBQ sauce in the fridge. Great for spinning and playing sauce roulette.
WTFAQ recently put this to the test in order to establish which was better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SYZuQGE6cEWe use the fridge door shelf, but only for the sake of convenience. Our pantry is very congested you see.
Fridge because I like my sauces cold
Half my fridge is full of different flavoured sauces, hot sauces and condiments though
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Sauce has so much salt in it, it doesn’t need to be refrigerated.