• by Sarah Mahoney , 6 hours ago

Hellmann's mayonnaise knows how to flex its funny side. Now, apparently, it thinks it's a budding musical talent too.

Following years of Reddit theorizing — sparked by a question first posed by the deep philosophical minds behind "SpongeBob SquarePants" and picked up by the Reddit fans who love them — the Unilever-owned brand decided to weigh in on one of the internet's more persistent debates: Is mayonnaise an instrument?

Hellmann's reposted the question on its social channels, then decided to actually answer it, commissioning Rachael Durkin, head of global music technologies at Northumbria University, to dig in. Her verdict: Yes. Mayonnaise, when slapped in just the right way, can function as an instrument.

"What matters is whether an object can produce or modify sound in a controlled, intentional way," she writes. "Mayonnaise can." Tested against the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, the gold standard for categorizing musical instruments, mayo turns out to be surprisingly versatile: a jar, a squeeze bottle, and an uncontained dollop each produce sounds that map to different parts of the system.

The brand then invited Andy Arthur-Smith, a musical artist and social media creator, to put it to the test. No one will ever confuse the condiment with Aretha Franklin, but it does have a little soul. Hellmann's plans to release his full track, "Mayonnaise Is an Instrument," generated entirely from the sounds mayo makes.

It's a moment, but not an isolated one. Food brands have long understood that sound is part of the sell — Rice Krispies built an entire identity around Snap, Crackle, and Pop, and ketchup bottles and champagne corks have their own reliable theater. But turning the food itself into the instrument is something newer. Last week, Skittles — owned by Mars — turned a concert flute into a game controller played by Twitch gamer PointCrow. Food, it seems, is finding its voice.