The brown bomber: how the likes of HP Sauce fell out of fashion

Name: Brown sauce.

Appearance: Brown sauce.

Age: Sort of late-Victorian.

Ingredients: Tomatoes, vinegar, sugar, dates and various spicy bits and pieces.

Are we talking about HP Sauce? HP is by far the UK’s leading brown-sauce brand, yes, but there are others, including Daddies, Chef in Ireland and A1 in the US.

How lucky we all are, to be able to delight ourselves with such sweet industrial bounty. Yes, maybe. Although people don’t seem to realise. According to the trade magazine the Grocer, UK sales of brown sauce fell 2.8% by value in the year leading up to May 2019.

That’s shocking! No it isn’t. Brown sauce is a condiment in decline. Sales fell 19% in 2014 alone.

What could explain this terrible trend? The fact that it’s disgusting.

Oh, grow up. If brown sauce was disgusting, why did so many British people cover their food with it for more than 100 years? Because their food was even more disgusting.

Piffle! These things are just a matter of taste. Give me some proper reasons. Well, one theory is that British people might be eating fewer cooked breakfasts and bacon sandwiches, where brown sauce can traditionally be found.

That’s possible. And arguably the picture of the Houses of Parliament on the HP label has begun to put people off their food.

That’s highly likely. Just don’t tell me that the dreaded ketchup is taking over. It isn’t. Not really. Ketchup and salad cream sales are basically flat. It’s the fancy foreign stuff that’s doing well.

Like what? Mayonnaise, for one thing. That’s up more than 10%, partly because it can be flavoured with other things, especially chilli. Hot sauces in general are doing well.

Dear me. Brown sauce and ketchup are going to be endangered species at this rate! I wouldn’t worry about that just yet. They were still worth £48m and £153m respectively last year.

So you’re saying that Britain’s taste in condiments shows us a country that is becoming rapidly more open-minded and cosmopolitan in outlook, but where many people still prefer things the way they used to be? That’s right.

You would never know it to look at us, would you? You would have absolutely no idea.

Do say: “When we get a no-deal Brexit, it will put a stop to all this sriracha nonsense flooding into the country. Then we can finally get back to our indigenous sauces.”

Don’t say: “I thought HP sauce was owned by an American company, Heinz, which makes it in, and ships it from the Netherlands?”