Fast food restaurants across the country experienced a devastating, highly publicized shortage of single-use ketchup packets during the height of the 2020 global pandemic, completely upending the condiment economy.

A closer look

Fast food restaurants across the country experienced a devastating, highly publicized shortage of single-use ketchup packets during the height of the 2020 global pandemic, completely upending the condiment economy. Because restaurants were legally forced to close their dining rooms and rely entirely on takeout and delivery, the demand for individual packets skyrocketed, leading to major supply chain disruptions and forcing prominent chains to aggressively hoard their tomato reserves. Secondary black markets literally emerged on digital platforms like eBay, where entrepreneurial weirdos were selling handfuls of crinkled Heinz packets for exorbitant prices to desperate people craving a semblance of normality. Nothing captures the sheer fragility of our interconnected global supply chain quite like the fact that a microscopic virus somehow managed to turn sticky packets of cheap sugar paste into highly coveted, heavily rationed economic luxury goods