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# I'm smacking the ketchup bottle and nothing is coming out
- URL: https://www.thefrictionlog.com/05000/
- Published: 2026-10-02T21:02:47.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-12T15:15:48.000Z
- Description: Filed: the 1870s · Solved: 2002 · the upside-down squeeze bottle · by the ketchup maker Heinz
- Author: The Clerk
- Tags: Solved, #solved 2002

*Tapped the side. Shook it. Waited. Now it's on my shirt.* — Father of three, 1987

Heinz says its ketchup comes out of the glass bottle at about 0.028 miles per hour. People didn't wait. They kept the bottle upside down in the refrigerator, so the ketchup would be at the cap by suppertime. In 2002 Heinz finally built the bottle that way: a squeeze bottle that stands on its cap, with a little silicone valve in the cap so it doesn't drip. Took them 126 years to turn it over. The customers figured it out a lot sooner.

**Noted**: Heinz says the spot to smack on the glass bottle is the 57 on its neck.

**Relates to** [No. 03200](https://www.thefrictionlog.com/03200/).