I wasn't going to use my car—too messy," he says.
Heinz for decades has searched for better single-serve packets. The company has tried making them bigger, easier to open, or attachable to a cup of French fries. None of the changes could be made cheaply or solve customers' main complaints—the single-serve packets are messy, hard to open and don't provide enough ketchup—say executives. For about the past decade, Heinz sold two single-serve containers: the classic squeeze packet and a dipping cup.
Heinz believes traditional ketchup packets are so annoying that they stop people from ordering fries at drive-thrus. "Fry inclusion orders" at drive-thrus "have been going down for years," says John Bennett, vice president of food-service ketchup, condiments and sauces for Heinz.
A large, wedge-shaped packet almost made it onto the market but Heinz ditched the design months before its planned introduction in 2008. Mr. Okoroafor declines to say what Heinz spent developing the "Dip and Squeeze."
In 2006, when activist investor Nelson Peltz battled Heinz for board seats, he pushed the company to make a number of changes, large and small, including developing easier-to-open ketchup packets. Now, Mr. Peltz sits on the boards of Heinz and Wendy's, which his holding company, Triarc Cos., bought in 2008.
Mr. Peltz declines through a spokesman to comment on the packaging change, saying it wouldn't be appropriate since he's on the boards of both companies.