French’s ketchup may soon be considered the ultimate Canadian food product.

The multinational corporation that makes the condiment is getting ready to announce plans to begin bottling some of it in Ontario.

The announcement follows an uproar over the past two weeks that triggered a consumer movement to buy French’s ketchup, which contains tomatoes grown and processed in Leamington. That forced one of the largest grocery chains in the country to backtrack on an announcement it would stop stocking the product, after claiming low sales.

“We have started negotiations with a partner in Canada and within the next week or so you will hear how we are bottling ketchup there, as well,” said French’s president Elliott Pender. “It’s something we are looking to do for sure.”

Presently, all French’s ketchup for consumers is bottled in Ohio. French’s ketchup for restaurants is packaged in Ontario.

Pender would not say where he’s looking to bottle the product, but he’s had to rule out Leamington, where Highbury Canco, which took over the former Heinz factory, bottles, cans and packages many food products.

“We’d love to do it in Leamington, but Highbury Canco is busy and can’t do ketchup there.”

Pender’s promise comes on the heels of a new Mainstreet/Postmedia poll, which finds Ontarians believe French’s ketchup made with Ontario tomatoes, but bottled in Ohio is more Canadian than President’s Choice ketchup which is made with California tomatoes, but bottled in Ontario.

“The ketchup wars have been in the news this past week and we wanted to see who Ontarians sided with,” said David Valentin, executive vice-president of Mainstreet Research, which polled 2,318 Ontario residents on March 17.

The poll’s results showed 35 per cent of respondents believe French’s ketchup made with Ontario’s tomatoes, but bottled in Ohio, is “more Canadian” than President’s Choice which is bottled in Ontario, but made with tomatoes from California.

Twenty-four per cent of respondents believed the opposite and supported President’s Choice as more Canadian, while another 24 per cent don’t think either product was Canadian at all and 17 per cent weren’t sure either way.

“For now, we are declaring French’s ketchup the winner of the ketchup wars,” Valentin said. “However, almost one in four Ontarians don’t think ketchup bottled in Ohio is Canadian at all.”

French’s ketchup could be perceived as “more Canadian” if they began to bottle in Ontario, he said.

French’s is owned by United Kingdom-based Reckitt Benckiser Group PLC.

Pender called it “unprecedented” in the business world to have a product’s popularity skyrocket the way French’s ketchup did. In the last three months, Pender has watched the volume of ketchup sales in Canada spike at an annual pace from about two million units up to 18 million.

“That’s a huge increase and has led to more farmers (this year) planting tomatoes in Ontario that were not last year,” he said. “All our food service manufacturing is done in Toronto, so we are increasing capacity and there will be more jobs there.”

Last week, Loblaw Cos. Ltd. announced it was pulling brands of French’s ketchup from stores due to low sales and protection of its own President’s Choice brands. But a massive backlash on social media and protest by shoppers forced the company to quickly reverse the decision.

Pender described the sweeping switch to French’s ketchup as groundbreaking proof of the power consumers hold.

“They have put expectations on companies to do the right thing,” he said. “People have said they want a better product that uses local ingredients and not those shipped from around the world.

“We are truly humbled by this. We want to make sure we give back to people on this in the best way we can to match what they have given to us.”

dbattagello@postmedia.com