SECTION – 3 (Part - 2)

Directions for question 93: Read the following passage carefully and answer the question at the end of the passage.

PASSAGE – 2

Many years ago, one mustard dominated the supermarket shelves: French's. It came in a plastic bottle. People used it on hot dogs and bologna. It was yellow mustard, made from ground white mustard seed with turmeric and vinegar, which gave it a mild, slightly metallic taste. If you looked hard in the grocery store, you might find something in the speciality-foods section called Grey Poupon, which was Dijon mustard, made from the more pungent brown mustard seed. In the early seventies, 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 desire for an alternative to French's or the runner-up, Gulden's. then one day, the Heublein Company, which owned Grey Poupon, discovered something remarkable: if you gave people a mustard taste test, a significant number had only to try Grey Poupon once to switch form yellow mustard. In the food world that almost never happens; even among the most successful food brands, only about one in a hundred has that kind of conversion rate. Grey Poupon was magic.

So Heublein put Grey Poupon in a bigger glass jar, with an enameled label and enough of a whiff of Frenchness to make it seem as if it were still being made in Europe (it was made in Hartford, Connecticut, from Canadian mustard seed and white wine). The company ran tasteful print ads in upscale food magazines. They put the mustard in little foil packets and distributed them with airplane meals – which was a brand – new idea at the time. Then they hired the Manhattan ad 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 man in the backseat in a suit with a plate of beef on a silver tray. He nods to the chauffeur, who opens the glove compartment. Then comes what is known in the business world as the reveal. The chauffeur hands back a jar of Grey Poupon. Another Rolls Royce pulls up alongside. A man leans his hand out of the Window. "Pardon me. Would you have any Grey Poupon?"

In the cities where the ads ran, sales of Grey Poupon leaped 40 to 50 percent, and whenever Heublein bought airtime in new cities sales jumped 40 to 50 percent again. Grocery stores put Grey poupon next to French's and Gulden's. by the end of the 1980's Grey Poupon 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 spot, says "and that, along with the Rolls Royce, seemed to impart to people's minds that this was something truly different and superior."

The rise of Grey Poupon proved that the American supermarket shopper was willing to pay more – in this case $3.99 instead of $1.49 for eight ounces – as long as what they were buying carried with it an air of sophistication and complex aromatics. Its success showed, furthermore, that the boundaries of taste and custom were not fixed: that just because mustard had always been yellow didn't mean that customers would use only yellow mustard. It is because of Grey Poupon that the standard American supermarket today has an entire mustard section. And it is because of Grey Poupon that a man named Jim Wigon decided, four years ago, to enter the ketchup business. Isn't the ketchup business today exactly where mustard was thirty years ago? There is Heinz and, far behind, Hunt's and Del; Monte and a handful of private label brands. Jim Wagon wanted to create the Grey Poupon of ketchup.

Wigon is form Boston. He runs his ketchup business – under the brand World's Best Ketchup – out of the catering business of his partner, Nich Schaiarizzi, in Norwood, Massachusetts. He starts with red peppers, Spanish onions, garlic, and a high – end tomato paste. Basil is chopped by hand, because the buffalo chopper bruises the leaves. He uses maple syrup, not corn syrup, which gives him a quarter of the sugar of Heinz. He pours his ketchup into a clear ten – ounce jar, and sells its for three times the price of Heinz, and for the past few years he has crisscrossed the country, peddling World's Best in six flavours – regular, sweet, dill, garlic, caramelized onion, and basil – to specialty grocery stores and supermarkets. If you were in Zabar's on Manhattn's Upper West Side a few months ago, you would have seen him at the front of the store, in the spot between the sushi and the gefilte fish. In front of him, on a small table, was a silver tureen filled with miniature chicken and beef meatballs, a box of troothpicks, anad a dozen or so open jars of his ketchup. "Try my ketchup"! Wigon said, over and over, to anyone who passed. "If you don't try it, you're doomed to eat Heinz the rest of your life".

In the same aisle at Zabar's that day two other demonstrations were going on, so that people were starting at one end with free chicken sausage, sampling a slice of prosciutto, and then pausing at the World's Best stand before heading for the cash register. They would look down at the array of open jars, and Wigon would impale a meatball on a toothpick, dip it in one of his ketchups, and hand it to them with a flourish. The ratio of tomato solids to liquid in World's Best is much higher than in Heinz, and the maple syrup gives it an unmistakable sweet kick. Invariably, people would close their eyes, just for a moment, and do a subtle double take. Some of them would look slightly perplexed and walk away, and others would nod and pick up a jar. "You know why you like it so much"? he would say, in his broad Boston accent, to the customers who seemed most impressed. "Because you have been eating bad ketchup all your life"! 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.

93. How many years did it take for Grey Poupon to grow from a hundred thousand dollar a year brand to the most powerful brand in mustard?

(A) less than 5 years

(B) about 5 – 10 years

(C) About 15 – 20 years

(D) More than 25 years

Explanatory Note:

It is stated in the first para of the passage that Grey Poupon was no more than a hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year business in the early seventies. The third para of the passage states that by the end of the 19080s Grey Poupon was the most powerful brand in mustard. Hence it can be understood that it took about 15-20 years for Grey Poupon to grow into the most powerful brand in mustard. Choice (C)