Since the death of the Queen, 800 food and drink brands such as Heinz, Cadbury and Coca Cola have been forced to remove their current Royal Warrants on their products and reapply to the new King Charles III for new ones. Some popular products featuring the late monarch’s royal coat of arms and other affiliations have surfaced online on sites such as eBay, selling at shockingly high prices.
Products such as Heinz’s limited edition bottles of HM Sauce and Salad Queen, which marked the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, are currently retailing online from £7.50 up to a whopping £35. The listing for the latter describes it as a "gift collectors' item".
One seller is even auctioning off their completely empty HM Sauce bottle, albeit at a much lower starting price of 99 pence. Other Platinum Jubilee-related items include the Heinz Queenz Beanz, which are retailing for up to £50 for just one tin.
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Other eBay listings featured Heinz items with the royal crest, such as the ‘classic’ 342g Heinz ketchup squeezy bottle - which sold for £25.49 for a pack of 10. Meanwhile, a watercolour painting of the famed Heinz ketchup bottle with the coveted coat of arms sold on eBay for £19.99.
A Royal Warrant allows a company use the royal coat of arms on products and in marketing in exchange for supplying goods and services to the royals. Firms that held one will need to reapply to use the royal crest in their products.
The current Royal Warrant features a distinctive image of the royal coat of arms that depict the lion of England, unicorn of Scotland and a shield divided into four quarters - followed by the quote “by appointment to Her Majesty the Queen”. Approximately 30 Royal Warrants are granted per year and the same number are equally withdrawn.
The 180 warrants that were already issued by Charles previously as Prince of Wales will continue to be valid. Firms are only eligible to apply for a Royal Warrant if they have supplied products or services regularly to the Royal Households for no less than five years out of the past seven.
Heinz has displayed the Queen's coat of arms on all its packaging for over 70 years, as Heinz was granted with a warrant in 1951. A Heinz spokeswoman told Yahoo: “It’s been our highest honour to supply The Royal Households with Heinz products since 1951, and we sincerely hope to be able to continue doing so for many years to come.”
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