Tomato - precious commodity?!

In Australia, numerous meals come with "chips", or as we refer to them in the US, french fries. The problem is THEY DON'T GIVE YOU KETCHUP!!! You have to pay extra for condiments at a horrendously inflated price. Someone who works in a restaurant argued, "well why should non-consumers be forced to subsidize the cost of this?" For one thing, I've never been in a restaurant that charges for salt, pepper, sugar, or cream. For another, the PRICE IS RIDICULOUS. The person argued that those little packs are expensive. Fifty cents each?! Give me a break. The best answer I can come up with, if the restaurants are being overcharged, is that Master Foods seems to have a monopoly on ketchup pack distribution in Australia. I'm no fan of McDonald's, but it's one of the few places in Australia that give you complimentary ketchup. Or tomato sauce, as they refer to it locally, and often it's just that - not the appropriately spiced blend that it is in the US. This article only tells 1/2 the story!