When you buy things like canned foods in bulk, you can lose track of trends and availability. When you’re 70 and have been eating the same exact product your entire life, you don’t even think about it, you just buy it — until you can’t. This is what happened last fall when my wife went to buy more Heinz Vegetarian Beans. These are the ones in the green wrapper with the added words “premium” and “in rich tomato sauce.” She went to several stores until she learned they were discontinued last June. No one seemed to know why.

As with many discontinued comfort foods, the loss seemed devastating when the information was disseminated. When I was old enough to cook myself, my mother showed me how she doctored the beans by adding brown sugar, mustard and Heinz ketchup. No measurements, just pour. When I got married, I taught my wife. She taught our children. She later eliminated the brown sugar. This was kept secret until I caught her in the act of making the beans without sugar. She claimed the brown sugar was no longer needed because Heinz had sweetened the original product. I can not confirm whether Heinz really did that, or if this was an attempt to cut my sugar intake, although I can make a good guess. Either way, my favorite baked beans are gone.

But wait. On a late December trip to winterize our summer home we found three cans. We ate two on that trip. We even took a picture to memorialize the occasion. I spent some quality time looking at that last can. I went so far as to read everything on the can in detail, even the fine print. I don’t believe I had ever done that. If so, I never noticed that the can clearly says “no meat.” It further points out that the American Heart Association recommends meat substitutes, such as beans. It includes the disclaimer that “the AHA does not endorse any product, service or equipment.” The can even gives Heinz’s own suggested ideas for doctoring, which it calls “tasty additions.” If we could buy more cans we might even try those recipes.

I decided to get more information. Perhaps Heinz could be swayed. The website only depressed me further. It looks like all the beans are gone. This is the company who once had an advertising campaign in the United Kingdom of “Beanz Meanz Heinz.” Other products were gone as well. So, I decided to call Heinz’s Consumer Center. Struggling through the accent, I confirmed the products were discontinued last June. The explanation involved the term “culinary trends.” I doubt the rep was from Pittsburgh. I certainly did not believe he had any feel for the longtime relationship between Pittsburgh and Heinz. Maybe it’s just me; my father was born in Pittsburgh, and I was brought up with all things Pittsburgh, even though I grew up in New Jersey and moved to eastern Pennsylvania just before we had kids.

I stopped being a market researcher a few years ago, but I can still spot a trend. As noted, my family’s history with Heinz is long. I owned a Green Weenie. I believed there really were 57 Varieties. I remember glass ketchup bottles and the battle to extract the ketchup. Heinz even bragged about this battle, advertising that Heinz ketchup was “The slowest ketchup in the west” and “The best things come to those who wait”. My family used to have many Heinz products in the house. Those products included ketchup in several different colors. We used to have hamburger painting contests. Any yellow highlights came from mustard, the only non-Heinz condiment on the table. After the kids left for college, I was still painting hamburgers until the other colors became unavailable. Now the only Heinz product in our house is one bottle of ketchup. We eat more salsa than ketchup and have different salsa flavors at the ready. Multiplied across the country, I wonder how many lost sales are out there?

Now what? What do you do with that last can? Place it alongside the old standby of hot dogs and sauerkraut? Serve it with scrambled eggs and bacon at breakfast? As a side to spare ribs? As I reread that list, I realize the “no meat” phrase didn’t apply to us.

But, we still can’t decide what to do. The pressure is too great. We need our comfort food back. I remember this feeling with Twinkies, but someone found a way.

This is a contributed opinion column. Mitch Zimmer was a business professor at Penn State Berks (originally Berks Lehigh Valley) for 24 years. Before that, he was a vice president for an international consulting firm. The views expressed in this piece are those of its individual author, and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of this publication. Do you have a perspective to share? Learn more about how we handle guest opinion submissions at themorningcall.com/opinions.