If you weren’t careful enough to investigate, you may have thought the iconic brand of ketchup many of us grew up with had changed direction. But that’s not the case, the brand is still on track as regular old ketchup. And Heinz is offering an apology for a snafu with some of their ketchup bottles that still carries an old QR code that nowlinks to an X-rated site, according to CNN Money.
After receiving a complaint from Daniel Korell on Thursday, Heinz couldn’t respond fast enough. Korell alerted the company that when he scanned the code on the ketchup bottle it actually uploaded to a porn site. In his post on the company’s Facebook page, Korell said that the ketchup “is probably not for minors” and added a photo of the spicy hot site.
“We really regret the incident,” a Heinz representative responded on Facebook.
The QR code on the back of the bottle had been intended to elaborate on a promotional campaign about personalized ketchup bottle labels, reported UPI. But Heinz never officially took down the domain name “sagsmithheinz.de” after the demise of the campaign in 2014, and the site was picked up by a pornography business.
“The bottle may be a remnant, but it is certainly still present in many households,” Korell told Heinz. “It is incomprehensible that you cannot secure the domain for at least one or two years. A .com domain really does not cost the world.”
Not only did Heinz offer an apology to Korell; and a custom-designed bottle of ketchup, free of charge; but the pornography site jumped in on the apology, and offered Kroll a free subscription to its service, for one year.
“Clearly this was never our intention and we are taking steps to avoid this from re-occurring,” the Heinz spokesman added.
The photos sent by Korell depicted a website that specializes in web cam girls. The porn company sent the customer a message.
“Hello Daniel Korell, wow! Has Heinz perhaps confused FunDorado’s Sexy Lila with its Lila Ketchup EZ Squirt? However, you won’t of course be going away empty handed. We’re giving you a year’s free access.”
Heinz extended its apologies to anyone else that may come in contact with the outdated QR code.
