Generally if you want your customers to consume more,  you might start thinking about increasing the size of your product. Back in 2000, Heinz turned that concept on it’s head when it introduced the small EZ Squirt Bottle.

The story behind the new EZ Squirt bottle originated in the late 90s when Heinz sent market researchers into people’s homes to learn about the way families use ketchup. What caught the attention of the researches was that Mum and Dad typically took control of the ketchup and poured it onto their child’s plate.

This took Heinz by surprise. Heinz were well aware of the fact that a typical five-year-old consumes about 60 percent more ketchup than a typical forty-year-old. With this insight, Heinz introduced the EZ Squirt bottle with a smaller design that fitted perfectly into the hands of it’s youngest users. Initial sales were promising and ketchup consumption increased by 12 percent in homes where the EZ Squirt Bottle was used.

Though the EZ Squirt Bottle only lasted 6 years on the shelves, it intrigued other manufactures to follow the same approach of driving consumption with a smaller product.