That takes a lot of bottle! HP sauce bosses cover up famous image of Big Ben to show the iconic London landmark as it undergoes renovations
- Famous sauce has used Elizabeth Tower on its packaging for 123 years
- New label – in all its ‘scaffolded glory’ – will remain in place during renovations
- HP closed their last factory in Birmingham in 2007 and have moved operations to the Netherlands
For 123 years, the Westminster skyline has had pride of place on bottles of HP Sauce.
But unlike the image on the label, Big Ben’s historic Elizabeth Tower is currently shrouded in scaffolding to allow for badly needed renovations.
Now Heinz has decided to mark the change, with a truer reflection of the scene in the capital.
British icon: The Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben, has froned the packaging for HP sauce for over 123 years but it about to undergo a makeover
The company said the new label, featuring the tower in all its ‘scaffolded glory’, will remain in use until work is completed and the chimes of Big Ben ‘ring out across the land again in 2021’.
Heinz has always been keen to play up the history and tradition of its distinctive brown sauce.
Frederick Gibson Garton, a Nottingham grocer, first formulated his recipe in 1870, and registered the name HP Sauce in 1896 because he had heard that a restaurant in the Houses of Parliament had begun serving it.
The company said the new label, featuring the tower in all its ‘scaffolded glory’, will remain in use until work is completed and the chimes of Big Ben ‘ring out across the land again in 2021’
He later sold the recipe for £150 to settle a debt with Edwin Samson Moore, who went on to make HP Sauce a commercial success with a national launch in 1903.
While the bottles carry the image of the mother of Parliaments – along with a Royal Warrant, on the basis that it is served at Buckingham Palace – the sauce is no longer quite as British as it might seem.
Heinz closed the HP Sauce factory in Aston, Birmingham, in 2007 with the loss of 120 jobs and shifted production to Holland.
Critics suggested the company should ditch the iconic British buildings from the label and add a windmill instead.