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Renae Sweet

Ms. Layton

English 1010

10, May 2019

“The Ketchup Conundrum”

​Malcolm Gladwell's essay, “The Ketchup Conundrum”, he poses this question; “Mustard

now comes in dozens of varieties. Why has ketchup stayed the same?” While discussing this

topic he uses Ketchup, Mustard, and Ragu sauce to help define his question and discuss the

reason the industries of each condiment are different from each other.

Starting off with Mustard, Gladwell states that there are so many different flavors and

purposes to mustard. Some people want their mustard sweet, some sour, maybe even spicy. He

goes on to explain that, “​Happiness, in one sense, is a function of how closely our world

conforms to the infinite variety of human preference.” This means that what people want is what

they will get, for the most part or in this situation.

Ragu sauce takes a similar position in the sense of their are many different flavors that

could be added to make Ragu how people want it. Gladwell explains that the mustard sauce

industry and ragu sauce industry follow this similar path. Many different companies can have all

kinds of different takes on the two sauces and more. Whereas Ketchup has sweet, sour, bitter,

spicy, savory tastes to it all at the same time. Gladwell states that ketchup covers all the different

taste buds people have. Along with the different wants that come with those taste buds. He goes

on to say that this is why the ketchup industry is so tough. There is not much else one could do to

improve the ketchup industry.

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Overall Gladwell brings up that in the end with anything in life, what people enjoy is

what they will have. This can make or break things across the board. In this case, Ketchup. The

ketchup sauce industry has been hard for people wanting to be big brands in the industry because

there is not much else they can do to improve the current substance. Mustard has so many

different takes on it because its original didn’t satisfy everything people wanted. They needed a

variety. Yet ketchup is an all in one type of condiment, that people enjoy at its original state.
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Works Cited

Gladwell, Malcolm. “Actively Learn.” ​Actively Learn​,

read.activelylearn.com/#student/reader/613769/notes.