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Henry John Heinz founded a commercially-prepared food empire.

His products provided convenience to housewives, who previously had to make each of his products from scratch. He wasn't the first to do this in America, but he was the first to win their trust by selling his food items in clear glass bottles so you could see what you were getting. He, and later his son Howard, introduced quality control procedures, and would even invite people into his factories to see how clean they were and how well-treated his employees were. He parlayed this trust into an empire through his natural marketing and advertising savvy.

The world headquarters of Heinz is still in Pittsburgh, where the company was founded, most Brits now think of Heinz as a British company.

Heinz ketchup sold in America today is made in Ohio and Iowa.

Henry was born and died in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Other industrial titans to come from Pittsburgh were Carnegie, Mellon and Westinghouse; Milton S. Hershey came from Pennsylvania as well.

Chronology

• 1844 -- Henry John Heinz was born 11 October 1844 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father, Johann Heinrich Heinz, had come to America four years earlier in 1840 from Bavaria. His mother, Anna Margaretha Schmitt, came from Hesse in Germany. His parents spoke German, naturally, and Heinz learnt it from them. His father had a brick-making business.
• 1850 -- The family moved from Pittsburgh to Sharpsburg.
• 1856 -- Henry's mother made pickles in her basement for sale. He would help make them, and in 1856, at the age of twelve, he started taking them around to sell, along with produce from their garden. At the time, he was also attending Duff's Mercantile College in Pittsburgh.
• 1859 -- At the age of fifteen, Henry started working in his father's business and became a partner in it.
• 1869 -- At the age of twenty-five, Henry decided he wanted his own business, and started making and selling pickled horseradish in clear glass bottles. The clear glass bottles were a stroke of marketing genius. Before that, products were sold in coloured glass bottles that people couldn't see through. The clear glass allowed buyers to inspect the product before purchasing. At the time, the bottled good manufactured industry had acquired a bad reputation for using filler, such as turnip pieces, or even wood chips, that you couldn't see were in the product until you got home.
• 1870 -- Henry married Sarah Heim. Henry began branching out into pickles, sauerkraut and vinegar, sending shipments to grocers in Pittsburgh. He set up headquarters in Sharpsburg, just to the north of Pittsburgh. A two-storey farmhouse served as both the factory and the offices. He then acquired a partner, L. Clarence Noble, who was a neighbour, and called the company Heinz & Noble. The two bought one hundred acres along the Allegheny River to grow vegetables on, as well as a vinegar factory in St Louis, Missouri, and expanded to larger facilities.
• 1872 -- Heinz and Noble introduced their ketchups at the Philadelphia fair -- one walnut based, and one tomato based.
• 1875 -- Heinz and Noble was overextended and had to go into bankruptcy.
• 1876 -- Henry restarted business with his Cousin Frederick and brother John, by managing to borrow $3,000. He called it the "F. & J. Heinz Company." He started out with ketchup, then added a pepper sauce made from red and green peppers, then apple butter, baked beans, chili sauce, cider vinegar, mincemeat, mustard, olives, pickled onions, pickled cauliflower and tomato soup. He also introduced the first sweet pickles sold commercially.
• 1886 -- At some point, Henry travelled to Germany to visit relatives. He returned to America in 1886 at age of 42. He subsequently introduced for his workers the pay levels, benefits and services that he saw German workers had. While in Europe, he also travelled to England with his family and samples of seven of his products. He persuaded Fortnum & Mason to taste the products. They did, and agreed to carry all seven of them, making Fortnum's the first grocery store in England to carry Heinz products.
• 1888 -- The company name was simplified to just "H.J. Heinz Company"
• 1896 -- Henry opened an office near the Tower of London, his first overseas office. He opened factories to actually make the products in England in Peckham in 1905 and in Harlesden in 1919.
• 1896 -- Henry came up with the slogan "57 varieties." He was 52 at the time. The number "57" in the slogan "57 varieties" was just a number he made up.
• 1900 -- By 1900, the Heinz company was making over 200 different products
• 1919 -- The Heinz company had twenty-five factories. Henry died of pneumonia at the age of 75 on 14 May 1919, and was buried in Homewood Cemetery in Pittsburgh. His son, Howard Heinz, took over.
• 1941 -- Howard J. Heinz II became president of the company.
• 1958 -- Up until 1958, all growth was actual growth in the company, as opposed to buying out competitors. In this year, they started acquisitions. They bought a food processing operation in the Netherlands, and then acquired companies in America, Mexico, Italy and Portugal over the next few years.

See Also:

Ketchup, Milton S. Hershey

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