One of the recurring fights on the Internet is whether a ketchup bottle, once it's been opened, should be stored in a refrigerator or not. There always seems to be someone arguing that since restaurants leave 'em out on the table, it's okay for you to leave yours out on a table or some other non-refrigerated place. Yeah…but most bottles on tables in restaurants are used-up in a day or two, sometimes less. In my house, a bottle lasts a couple of weeks so I keep mine in the refrigerator.
Here is what should be the final answer. It's from the folks who make most of the stuff and they say it goes in the refrigerator.
But here's what seems to me to be a more important issue — two more important issues, really…
Restaurants like to "top off" their bottles of ketchup. When one is half-full, someone takes it in the back, sticks a funnel in it and pours in enough to fill it to the brim. And often, they're pouring in some brand other than the one (usually Heinz) on the bottle's label. I often taste ketchup from a Heinz bottle that is definitely not Heinz.
So isn't that kinda false advertising? How would you feel if you ordered a Coca-Cola® and what they served you was Pepsi® — or more likely, some other brand you never heard of — poured into a Coke® bottle?
And just how old is the ketchup at the bottom of a bottle in a restaurant? If they keep "topping off" bottles that are two-thirds full, that bottom third could be there for weeks, months, in some cases years of non-refrigeration. Never mind investigating Donald Trump. We need Jack Smith to get to the bottom of this.