Condimaniac has stopped supplying its 100% British ketchup to Jeremy Clarkson's pub, The Farmer's Dog, after a dispute over labelling. The sauce-maker's boss, Kier Kemp, announced the decision in a social media video, saying the company did not want to 'white-label' its products for the Cotswolds establishment.
Dispute over branding
Kemp explained that the issue centred on whether the ketchup should carry Condimaniac's name or that of Clarkson's Diddly Squat brand. He said: “We're not selling 100% British ketchup to Jeremy Clarkson's pub The Farmer's Dog anymore. The reason is quite nuanced but ultimately what it boils down to is we don't like to white-label our products.”
He added that while Condimaniac had produced white-label sauces for one-off projects like Download Festival and Octopus Energy, supplying a regular customer under a different brand was different because the company would be responsible for a product that did not carry its name.
Ketchup creation and fall-out
The ketchup was developed after Clarkson struggled to find a version meeting his rule that all food at The Farmer's Dog be produced entirely in Britain. Condimaniac created a recipe using tomato passata from the Isle of Wight, British-grown onions and carrots, UK sugar, apple cider vinegar from Hampshire, and salt from Essex.
The project was described as 'a bit of fun', but videos documenting the sauce's creation went viral. After producing a successful batch, Kemp and his team visited the pub, where customers tried it. The pub agreed to stock bottles at its on-site butcher's shop and Farmer's Puppy food stand.
Kemp praised Clarkson's operation, saying staff lived by the pub's pledge to support British farming. However, he said Condimaniac had decided to bring production back in-house as initial publicity subsided and it became clear the latest series of Clarkson's Farm would not provide another significant sales boost. Clarkson had not responded to a request for comment.
