HEINZ meanz... bad news for Birmingham but good news for Worcester. While this newspaper would shrink from rejoicing too loudly in the wake of our bigger neighbour's misfortune, we can surely be pardoned for giving just a little cheer that our famous sauce is once more going to be bottled in the place of its birth.

The projected return has been brought about by the global giant closing its HP Food factory. This is undoubtedly a tragedy for the second city's workforce, with 125 jobs due for the chop. Nevertheless, this darkest of clouds does have a silver lining of sorts, and one that is most certainly to our advantage.

Geography should play a large part in the marketing of any product. We cannot think of Pontefract without thinking of the liquorice cakes, neither is it possible to conjure up images of Bakewell and not see the famous tarts in our mind's eye.

It is the same with Worcestershire Sauce, the brown nectar that is the obligatory accompaniment to everything from welsh rabbit to the alcoholic drink named after a certain bloodthirsty Tudor monarch. The facts of the matter are that the most famous condiment on the planet should be produced - from mixing vat to conveyor belt - within the confines of the city that gave it life.

When Lord Sandys and a couple of Victorian gentlemen first experimented with the dark liquid, little did they know that out of their alchemy a star would be born. It was a case of today Worcester, tomorrow the world. We should therefore all now give thanks that the missing link in the legend will be returning to its ancestral home.