Why you’re storing your canned foods the wrong way up

Heinz says storing their baked bean cans upside down makes it easier to get them out. What's it like with other tinned foods? Photo / Getty Images

Does Heinz’s theory that baked beans are best kept upside down apply to all tinned foods? Xanthe Clay puts five popular cans to the test.

We’ve been storing our baked bean tins wrong all these years. Or that is what the people at Heinz are saying, and they should know. It seems we need to be putting the tin in the cupboard upside down – with the ring pull at the bottom. I can’t say I pay much attention to which way up my tins get shoved on the shelf. What difference could it possibly make?

The problem, says Heinz, is that when we tip the beans out into a pan, some stay recalcitrantly stuck at the base. Sure, having to make them move with a spoon is hardly a tragedy even if that metal-on-metal scraping is tooth-jangling. On the scale of first-world problems, it’s somewhere between a leaking cappuccino lid and a nationwide chia seed shortage. But if it’s possible to make beans on toast, the definition of an easy supper, even less hassle, why not do it?

The point is that the beans naturally sink to the bottom of the can, sticking together in a gunky mass. By inverting the tin, the beans will settle at the ring pull end – and be easily dislodged once the lid is removed.

It’s important enough that Heinz has released a batch of tins with their labels on upside down, as a sort of bean-based aide-memoire. And it led me to wonder whether this useful hack is transferable. Should I be storing all my tins upside down?

I put it to the test, with two cans each of four popular types of tinned food, plus the baked beans of course. One of each spent the night upside down, the other the right – or should that be wrong? – way up.

Heinz has launched "upside down" baked beans in the UK to encourage shoppers to store the cans with the ring-pull down. Photo / Heinz

The next day, I assessed them, opening the tins and tipping out the contents. Infuriatingly, two of the 10 ring pulls broke, a 20% failure rate that possibly deserves a bit more attention from manufacturers than a label gimmick. But close comparison revealed that yes, maybe, Heinz has a point about tin orientation, and my cupboard will be more rigorously topsy turvy henceforward.

Chopped tomatoes

Pretty much no difference at all. Maybe a touch less residue at the bottom of the upside-down tin? But I’m clutching at straws.

Verdict: Leave the right way up.

Kidney beans

The upside-down tin looks murkier, as some of the sediment has settled at the ring pull end. When emptying there are a few stray beans stuck in the bottom, but a brisk tap sends most of them tumbling into the bowl, leaving just five stickers. The “right way up” (RWU) tin has way more left in the bottom and they are completely stuck. There’s no budging those without some spoon action.

Verdict: Store upside down.

Chickpeas

The chickpeas slide out of the upside-down tin beautifully, but the right-way up tin has a lot of gunk and three chickpeas left. Not a disaster, but irritating.

Verdict: Store upside down.

The storage hack makes it easier to empty many of your favourite foods from the can. Photo / Getty Images

Baked beans

There are more beans gleaming at the top of the upside-down tin, and when inverted they come out in a lump. RWU was a more decorous gradual stream. Both had lots stuck at the bottom, but a gentle rap loosened the upside-down tin’s contents. RWU needed shaking like a set of maracas to get any traction at all on them. I resort to a spoon.

Verdict: Store upside down.

Coconut milk

There’s a layer of cream on top of the RWU tin, and it’s easier to pour the watery whey from the upside-down tin, leaving the cream behind. Both emptied pretty well, but I think it would make more difference if left longer than overnight.

Verdict: Inconclusive.