Heinz has cast its net into the internet in a bid to find a man who lived on ketchup and packaged seasoning for 24 days when he got lost at sea.
In an Instagram post featuring a virtual message in a bottle last week, Heinz—which has been making tomato ketchup since 1886—asked for help tracking down the “amazing man with an amazing story.”
“Heinz wants to celebrate his safe return home and help him buy a new boat… but we can’t seem to find him,” the food manufacturing giant said, before urging anyone with any knowledge of his whereabouts to reach out to the company.
Who is the ‘ketchup boat guy’?
Elvis Francois was found around 120 nautical miles northwest of Colombia’s Puerto Bolívar last month when a plane spotted the word “help,” which he had etched into his boat.
He was rescued by the Colombian navy after poor weather conditions pulled his boat out to sea and his lack of navigational skills meant he did not know how to get his sailboat back to land.
“I had no food. It was just a bottle of ketchup that was on the boat, garlic powder and Maggi [stock cubes] so I mixed it up with some water,” Francois said in a video released by Colombian officials.
“I call my friends, my coworkers,” he added. “They tried to contact me, but they lost service. There was nothing else I could do than sit down and wait.”
When Francois was rescued, officials said, he was “found to be in good health.”
The campaign to find Francois, who Heinz has dubbed “ketchup boat guy,” has continued in the days since the firm’s message in a bottle was released “into the sea of the internet.”
Over the weekend, Heinz posted an update revealing it had reached an impasse in its search for Francois.
“We know he’s still out there,” the company said in an Instagram post. “If you or anyone you know can help us get in contact with Elvis Francois, please drop us a comment below.”
Heinz said it had reached out to the government of Dominica, where Francois is from, as well as the Colombian navy, which found Francois stranded at sea in January.
A spokesperson for Heinz was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Coins2Day.
However, a representative for the company told CBS News on Thursday that Heinz wanted to “gift” Francois a “new state-of-the-art boat.”
They added that the new boat would be “equipped with full navigational technology to avoid another disaster in the future.”
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