Reading 3

bitterbland sour
Lead-in

spicy
robustsweet
syrupy tangy
1 Find words in the picture that match the Test practice: Matching information and
definitions. summary completion
1 containing or having a taste like sugar 4 Read the text and complete Questions 1–6.
sweet
2 a pleasantly strong, hot taste spicy
Questions 1–6
3 a strong sharp taste like black coffee without
sugar bitter The passage on page 17 has six paragraphs labelled
4 food that has very little taste bland A–F.
5 a taste or smell that is strong and sharp in a Which paragraph contains the following information?
pleasant way Write the correct letter, A–F.
6 having a sharp acid taste, like the taste of a NB You may use any letter more than once.
lemon sour
7 thick and sticky, like treacle or honey 1 the first mention of a man with a dream
syrupy d
8 food that has a good, strong taste
2 research that showed customers were happy to
2 Work in pairs and discuss the questions. change brands a
1 What kind of food do you enjoy eating? 3 a description of a time when a salesman failed
2 What’s your favourite dish? Why? to make a profit f
3 Do you like eating spicy food? Why/Why not? 4 an example of an industry where small
4 What condiments do you use to add extra flavour businesses are unable to compete with the
to the food you eat? leading brand f
5 an explanation for the success of an advertising
Test training: Synonyms and paraphrasing
campaign c
3 In the Reading test, you will need to find in the 6 a description of how a product is made
text synonyms or paraphrasing of words in the e
question. In pairs, think of synonyms for these
words.
1 a dream or an idea vision           
2 to change to switch           
3 a profit money in your          
pocket
4 to compete to challenge           
5 explanation reason           
6 a description story           

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 Reading 3
5 Now complete the summary (Questions 7–12)
using words from paragraphs D–F.
Questions 7–12
Complete the summary below.
Write ONE WORD ONLY for each answer.
Jim Wigon was inspired by the success of Grey
Poupon mustard to launch his own 7 business
producing and selling high-quality tomato ketchup.
The ingredients include red peppers, high-end
tomato paste, hand-chopped basil and maple
syrup, with only a 8 quarter of the sugar
content of the most popular 9 brand . He
then sells his ketchup for three times the price.
Unfortunately, he has not been very successful,
despite personally travelling around the country
trying to sell his 10 product directly to
supermarkets. Not only does he face stiff
competition in the world of 11 speciality
ketchup but it seems as though while consumers
are happy to pay over the odds for a premium
mustard, the same 12 rules simply don’t
apply when it comes to ketchup.
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Language development
6 Read these sentences from the text. Underline
the nouns that the pronouns in bold refer to.
1 Few people knew what it was or how it tasted, …
(Paragraph A) Grey Poupon mustard
2 In the food world that almost never happens, …
(Paragraph A) people switching to a different brand
3 They put the mustard in little foil packets
, and distributed them with meals on airlines …
(Paragraph B) the company
4 If only it were that easy. (Paragraph D) building a successful
business
5 In the speciality ketchup world, there is River
Run and Uncle Dave’s, from Vermont, and Muir
Glen Organic and Mrs Tomato Head Catsup, in
California, and dozens of others … (Paragraph F) ketchups
Follow-up
7 Work in pairs and discuss the situation below.
Imagine you were asked to make a magazine advert
to help sell a high-quality sauce that is considerably
more expensive than other sauces. What would you
focus on? How would you explain the price? What
would your advert look like?
Notes
Draw your advert.
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Reading 3
The ketchup conundrum
A Many years ago, just one mustard dominated the
U.S. supermarket shelves: the American brand
French’s. It was a yellow mustard that came in a
plastic bottle. If you looked hard in the grocery
store, you might find something in the specialty
foods section called Grey Poupon, which was
a French-style mustard, light brown in colour.
In the early 1970s, Grey Poupon was no more
than a hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year business.
Few people knew what it was or how it tasted,
or had any particular interest in a different
mustard to French’s. Then one day the Heublein
Company, which owned Grey Poupon, discovered
something: if you gave people a mustard taste test,
a significant number of people who tried Grey
Poupon switched from French’s yellow mustard.
In the food world that almost never happens,
which made Grey Poupon special.
B Heublein put Grey Poupon in a bigger jar, with a
new label that made it seem French, even though
it was made in Connecticut with Canadian
ingredients. The company ran tasteful adverts in
upscale food magazines. They put the mustard in
little foil packets and distributed them with meals
on airlines – which was a brand-new idea at the
time. Then they hired the Manhattan advertising
agency Lowe Marschalk to do something, on a
modest budget, for television. The agency came
back with an idea: A Rolls-Royce is driving down
a country road. There’s a man in the back seat in
a suit with a plate of beef on a silver tray. He nods
to the chauffeur, who hands back a jar of Grey
Poupon. Another Rolls-Royce pulls up alongside.
A man leans his head out the window. ‘Pardon
me. Would you have any Grey Poupon?’
C In the cities where the adverts were shown, sales
of Grey Poupon rose 40 to 50 percent. Grocery
stores put Grey Poupon next to French’s and by the
end of the 1980s it was the most powerful brand
in mustard. ‘The tagline in the commercial was
that this was one of life’s finer pleasures,’ Larry
Elegant, who wrote the original Grey Poupon
advert, says, ‘and that, along with the Rolls-
Royce, seemed to impart to people’s minds that
this was something truly different and superior.’
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D The rise of Grey Poupon proved that the American
supermarket shopper was happy to pay more for
a better quality product. Furthermore, its success
showed that a consumer’s taste and habits were
not fixed: that just because mustard had always
been yellow did not mean that consumers would
use only yellow mustard. It is because of Grey
Poupon that the standard American supermarket
today has an entire mustard section. It is also
because of Grey Poupon that a man named Jim
Wigon decided, several years ago, to enter the
ketchup business. Jim Wigon had a simple vision:
build a better ketchup – the way Grey Poupon
built a better mustard – and the world will beat a
path to your door. If only it were that easy.
E Wigon runs his ketchup business under the brand
World’s Best Ketchup. He starts with red peppers
and then adds Spanish onions, garlic and a high-
end tomato paste. Basil is chopped by hand rather
than by machine. He uses maple syrup, not corn
syrup, which gives him a quarter of the sugar of
the most popular tomato ketchup brand. He then
pours his ketchup into a clear glass ten-ounce
jar, and sells it for three times the price of other
brands.
F Wigon then travels around the country selling
the product to supermarkets. At the end of one
long day, Wigon had sold 90 jars but he had also
got two parking tickets and had to pay for a hotel
room, so he was not going home with money
in his pocket. And it isn’t just World’s Best that
is finding it difficult. In the speciality ketchup
world, there is River Run and Uncle Dave’s,
from Vermont, and Muir Glen Organic and Mrs
Tomato Head Catsup, in California, and dozens
of others – and every year Heinz’s huge share of
the ketchup market just grows. It is possible, of
course, that ketchup is waiting for its own version
of that Rolls-Royce commercial – the magic
formula that will satisfy an unmet need. It is also
possible, however, that the rules which apply to
Grey Poupon and to olive oil and salad dressing
and almost everything else in the supermarket,
simply do not apply to ketchup.
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