View source for HP Sauce

{{Short description|British sauce made with tamarind}}
{{Use British English|date=September 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2024}}
{{Infobox brand
| name           = HP Sauce
| logo           = HPsauce.svg
| logo_size      = 120
| image          = File:-2019-09-04 Bacon sandwich with HP sauce, Cromer.JPG
| image_size     = 200
| caption        = HP Sauce on a bacon sandwich
| producttype    = [[Brown sauce]]
| currentowner   = [[Kraft Heinz]] (2005–pres.)
| producedby     = [[Heinz]]
| country        = [[United Kingdom]]
| introduced     = {{start date and age|1895}} <ref name=mob>[https://museumofbrands.com/hp-sauce/ HP Sauce history] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220130000425/https://museumofbrands.com/hp-sauce/ |date=30 January 2022 }} on Museum of Brands</ref>
| discontinued   = 
| related        = 
| markets        = Europe, Canada, Australia
| previousowners = {{plainlist|
* Frederick Gibson Garton <br>(1895–1903)<ref name=mob/>
* [[HP Foods]] (1903–2005)
}}
| trademarkregistrations = 
| ambassadors    = 
| tagline        = 
| website        = {{url|https://www.hpsauce.co.uk/|hpsauce.co.uk}}
}}
'''HP Sauce''' is a British [[brown sauce]],<ref>{{cite book| last1=O'Hara| first1=Christopher B.| last2=Nash| first2=William A.| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KmzcpVixMwsC&pg=PA87| title=The Bloody Mary: A Connoisseur's Guide to the World's Most Complex Cocktail| publisher=Globe Pequot| year=1999| page=87| isbn=9781558217867}}{{Dead link|date=May 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> the main ingredients of which are [[tomato]]es, [[malt vinegar]] and [[molasses]]. It was named after London's [[Houses of Parliament]]. After making its first appearance on British dinner tables in the late 19th century, HP Sauce went on to become an icon of [[British culture]].<ref name="bbc-abroad"/> It was the best-selling brand of brown sauce in the UK in 2005, with 73.8% of the retail market.<ref>{{cite book | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=NgGNjuYWB_8C |title=HJ Heinz and HP Foods: A Report on ... – Great Britain: Competition Commission| first=Competition | last=Authority| year=2012 |publisher=The Stationery Office | isbn=9780117036840| access-date=1 January 2012}}</ref> The sauce was originally produced in the United Kingdom, but is now made by [[Heinz]] in the [[Netherlands]]. 

HP Sauce has a tomato base, blended with [[malt vinegar]] and [[spirit vinegar]], [[sugar]]s ([[molasses]], [[glucose-fructose syrup]], [[Sucrose|sugar]]), [[Date palm#Dates|dates]], cornflour, rye flour, salt, spices and [[tamarind]].<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.hpsauce.co.uk/en/products/hp-brown-sauce# | title = HP Brown Sauce | publisher = Heinz}}</ref> It is used as a condiment with hot and cold [[:wikt:savory|savoury]] food, and as an ingredient in [[soup]]s and [[stew]]s.

The picture on the front of the bottle is a selection of London landmarks including [[Big Ben]], the [[Palace of Westminster]], and [[Westminster Bridge]].

==History==
Frederick Gibson Garton had a grocers and provisions shop on Milton Street, in Nottingham. He used this recipe for the brown sauce in his pickles and sauce factory in [[New Basford]]. This was located at the rear of his home in Sandon Street. Its ingredients included vinegar, water, tomato puree, garlic, tamarind, ground mace, cloves and ginger, shallots, cayenne pepper, raisins, soy, flour and salt. Garton registered the name H.P. Sauce in 1895, choosing it because he had heard a rumour that a restaurant in the Houses of Parliament had begun serving it. The sauce bottle labels carried a picture of the Houses of Parliament. This was not his only product; he also made Nottingham Sauce, Sandon Sauce, Worcester Sauce, Banquet Sauce, Yorkshire Sauce and Daddies Favourite Sauce, as well as Garton & Co's Indian Chutney.{{cn|date=May 2022}}

In 1899 he was unable to settle a debt with his vinegar suppliers, the Midland Vinegar Company of Aston Cross, Birmingham. Edwin Samson Moore of the vinegar company visited his Nottingham premises to settle the matter. The outcome was that Garton sold the name and recipe for HP Sauce for £150.<ref name="guardian1">{{cite news|last=Thring |first=Oliver |url=https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2010/may/04/hp-sauce |title=Consider the brown source {{pipe}} guardian.co.uk |work=The Guardian |date=4 May 2010 |access-date=7 July 2010 | location=London}}</ref> He also had to agree to keep out of the sauce and pickles business. The name of GARTON remained on the bottles of HP sauce for many years afterwards but it was The Midland Vinegar Company who profited from the huge sales that were generated. Today HP and [[Daddies]] are the two most popular national brands of brown sauce.{{cn|date=May 2022}}

For many years{{vague|date = April 2021}} the bottle labels have carried a picture of the Houses of Parliament.<ref name="guardian1"/>

In the United Kingdom, HP Sauce became informally known as "Wilson's gravy" in the 1960s and 1970s, after [[Mary Wilson, Baroness Wilson of Rievaulx|Mary Wilson]], the wife of [[Prime Minister of the United Kingdom|Prime Minister]] [[Harold Wilson]], gave an interview to ''[[The Sunday Times]]'', in which she said: "If Harold has a fault, it is that he will drown everything with HP Sauce."<ref>{{cite news|author=Hélène Mulholland|url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/oct/13/houseofcommons.uk |title=Ban HP from Houses of Parliament, say MPs |work=The Guardian |date= 13 October 2006|access-date=22 April 2018 | location=London}}</ref>

===Heinz takeover===
[[File:HP Sauce sign at mac.jpg|thumb|right|Signage from the defunct factory in Aston, exhibited at Birmingham's [[Mac (Birmingham)|mac]] gallery in June 2010]]
The brand passed from the Midlands Vinegar Company<ref name="bbc-abroad">[[BBC News]] 9 May 2006 [https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/4754351.stm '''Great British' sauce heads abroad'']. Retrieved 12 March 2008.</ref> to Smedley HP Foods Limited, which was subsequently acquired by a division of [[Imperial Tobacco]], before being sold to the French [[Danone|Groupe Danone SA]] in 1998 for £199 million.<ref name="heinz-buys">[[BBC News]] [https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4110006.stm  Heinz buys HP sauce in £470m deal], 20 June 2005. Retrieved 11 March 2008.</ref>

In June 2005, [[Heinz]] purchased the parent company, [[HP Foods]], from [[Danone]].<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4110006.stm |title=Heinz buys HP sauce in £470m deal |publisher=BBC News |date=20 June 2005 |access-date=7 July 2010}}</ref> In October of that year the United Kingdom [[Office of Fair Trading]] referred the [[takeover]] to the [[Competition Commission]],<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4379248.stm |title=Watchdogs probe HP sauce takeover |publisher=BBC News |date=26 October 2005 |access-date=7 July 2010}}</ref> which approved the £440 million acquisition in April 2006.<ref>{{cite news|author=Terry Macalister |url=https://www.theguardian.com/business/2006/may/10/food.foodanddrink1 |title=HP Sauce to be Holland-ised |work=The Guardian |date= 10 May 2006|access-date=16 June 2022 | location=London}}</ref>
[[File:The HP Sauce factory - geograph.org.uk - 256298.jpg|thumb|left|The HP Sauce factory in 2006]]
In May 2006, Heinz announced plans to switch production of HP Sauce from [[Aston]] in [[Birmingham]] to its European sauces facility in [[Elst, Gelderland|Elst]], [[Netherlands]], only weeks after HP launched a campaign to "Save the Proper British Cafe". The announcement caused backlash and prompted a call to boycott Heinz products. The move, resulting in the loss of approximately 125 jobs at the Aston factory, was criticised by politicians and [[trade union|union]] officials, especially as the owner still wanted to use the image of the [[British House of Commons|House of Commons]] on its bottles. In the same month, local Labour MP [[Khalid Mahmood (politician, born 1961)|Khalid Mahmood]] brandished a bottle of HP Sauce during [[Prime Minister's Questions]] in the House of Commons as part of a protest against the Heinz move. He also made reference to the sauce's popularity with the former Labour Prime Minister [[Harold Wilson]]. These plans were confirmed on 23 August 2006<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/5279896.stm |title=Staff told of HP factory closure |publisher=BBC News |date=23 August 2006 |access-date=7 July 2010}}</ref> and the factory at Aston ceased production on 16 March 2007.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/6455565.stm |title=Final British bottle of HP sauce |publisher=BBC News |date=16 March 2007 |access-date=7 July 2010}}</ref> A week later a [[Wake (ceremony)|"wake"]] was held at the location of the factory.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/6483571.stm |title=Mock wake staged in sauce protest |publisher=BBC News |date=23 March 2007 |access-date=7 July 2010}}</ref>

The factory was demolished in the summer of 2007.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/west_midlands/6260668.stm |title=Demolition of HP factory begins |publisher=BBC News |date=2 July 2007 |access-date=7 July 2010}}</ref>

The six-acre Aston site was purchased by developer Chancerygate in 2007 at £800,000 per acre; they subsequently sold it for half that price and it now houses a distribution warehouse for [[East End Foods]].<ref>{{Cite journal
| title = M6 CORRIDOR: Lonely road.
| journal = Logistics Manager
| access-date = 25 May 2012
| date = 4 September 2009
| url = http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-207207681.html
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140610183137/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-207207681.html
| url-status = dead
| archive-date = 10 June 2014
}} {{subscription required|work=[[HighBeam]]}}</ref>
{{-}}

==Varieties==
[[File:HP Fruity (cropped).jpg|thumb|50px|A bottle of Fruity HP Sauce]]
HP Sauce is available in a range of formats and sizes, including the [[Cultural icon|icon]]ic 9 oz/255 g glass [[bottle]], plastic [[squeeze bottle]], and TopDown bottle.

*HP Fruity is a milder version of the Original brown sauce, using a blend of fruits including oranges and [[mango]] to give a milder, tangier taste. This variety has been renamed "HP Chicken & Rib" in Canada and the US (though it can be found in some stores with the original name).
*HP Bold is a spicier variant in Canada.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.kraftcanada.com/brands/meat-sauces/products/heinz-hp-sauce | title= Kraft Canada HP Sauces}}</ref>
*HP BBQ Sauce is a range of [[barbecue sauce]]s, and is the UK's best selling barbecue sauce product.<ref>IRI Data, 52w/e 26 Jan 8</ref>
*Since 2011, the original HP sauce has been manufactured with a new reduced-sodium recipe.{{Citation needed|date=September 2020}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
* {{official website}}
* [https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/6455565.stm BBC News – Final Bottle of HP]

{{Heinz}}
{{Brown sauces}}
{{English cuisine}}
{{Portal bar|Food}}

[[Category:Food brands of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:British brands]]
[[Category:British condiments]]
[[Category:Brown sauces]]
[[Category:Heinz brands]]
[[Category:Brand name condiments]]
[[Category:Products introduced in 1895]]
[[Category:Steak sauces]]