The moment visitors click into Heinz.com, they find an illustration of a globe surrounded by eight images of various people from around the world: two smiling couples in Poland; a joyful family in India; a seemingly surprised, post-work couple in China; an American guy in front of his laptop late at night; and so on. Each of them, you’ll be shocked to discover, is greatly enjoying one Heinz product or another. And from each image, visitors can access recipes or visit that particular product’s webpage.

If the visitor doesn’t notice how global Heinz is just yet, there is another clue prominently displayed below the aforementioned images. It’s a little world map that leads to a larger, clickable version that fills folks in on what geographic regions Heinz reaches with which products—which is helpful because the company has its fingers in at least 200 different countries and has been manufacturing in England for so long (since 1886) that many folks in Britain think it is a UK company. (Heinz’s biggest product in the UK appears to be baked beans. That’s such a big deal to the company that it designed the smallest microwave oven ever so that workers can heat up their beans on the job. It can be powered from a laptop computer via USB cable.)

Henry John Heinz started the company in 1869, just 17 years before the brand infiltrated England. It remains based just outside Pittsburgh, but is now publicly traded, has more than 30,000 employees, and more products—including frozen food, soups, pasta sauce, baby food—as well as more than US$ 10 billion revenue in 2008. Not too shabby.

Going global has served the company well. Only slightly more than half of its revenue comes from North America now, while a quarter comes from Europe and a little more than 10 percent from Asia-Pacific. Another step toward promoting its global presence is found on Heinz.com’s “About the Company” video. The narrator has a British accent.

Ketchup is not considered by most to be healthy, but Heinz leverages its website in combating that reputation.

The latter section spends time discussing Heinz’s dedication to offering “nutritionally balanced food choices” and informing consumers about health and wellness issues and solutions. In fact, one of the causes Heinz has taken on is iron deficiency, which the World Health Organization says is the most widespread health problem around the world. So Heinz details how the brand is helping to eliminate micronutrition deficiencies worldwide, particularly in developing countries.

As part of its effort to promote healthiness, Heinz.com also offers recipes. The brand promotes its international reach by showing different recipe groupings for different regions of the world. Americans can go to the Classico sauces recipe page. New Zealanders can find themselves with a bowl of Asian Coconut Chicken Noodles after 15 minutes and combining a few of Heinz’s Food In A Minute products sold there.

The brand is also concerned about sustainability, the environment, and social and economic issues. The site chronicles the ways Heinz is working toward making the world a better place, such as developing its own tomato seeds that produce more disease-resistant plants that lower the need for pesticides.

On the downside, however, Heinz.com should make a better effort to engage visitors and offer more interactive features. Its only offerings are a body-mass-index calibrator and the “Splat!” a friend feature where visitors choose a message—“Let’s ketchup!” or “Tomato, tomahto!” for example—to send others. The friend receives an email with the subject line “You’ve received a Heinz Splat” and a link that has an animated tomato knocking over a ketchup bottle and squeezing out the chosen message. It’s a fair amount of work for little payoff. While the email sender and receiver supposedly share a laugh, Heinz collects a few email addresses for later use.

Despite the interactive aspect, the site defines the brand and offers comprehensive—if loosely organized—content that is easy on the eyes, but that may be due to the soothing earth-tone and sky-blue backgrounds throughout. The designers smartly steer clear of sticking ketchup red everywhere. There is more to the brand, after all, than squashed tomatoes.