Telling The Heinz Story:
This exhibit, Heinz 57, tells the story of a local company that has had a great influence on the region, the nation, and the world. From a modest beginning, 130 years ago in the small town of Sharpsburg, just north of Pittsburgh, H.J. Heinz and his successors built a giant multi-national food business. Today, the H.J. Heinz Company feeds the world from Pittsburgh to Perth and all points in-between.
The changing variety of Heinz products has both mirrored and shaped our food tastes and eating habits over the last 130 years. The story of Heinz is also our story: how we ate in the past, how we eat today, and how we might eat in the future.
Eating in America:
The way that Americans buy, cook, and eat their food has changed over time, as people moved from farms to cities, immigrants adopted the ways of their new country, food processing and transportation increased the variety of foods available, and grocery stores were replaced by supermarkets. As Americans found themselves with less and less time to devote to meal preparation, they sought out convenience foods for home, as well as the convenience foods for home, as well as the convenience of restaurant dining. Heinz kept pace with these changing food tastes and eating habits, by constantly varying its product line and by catering to customers eating in their homes and out at restaurants.
Eating In America: Dining Out:
Heinz began to sell products to restaurants and hotels in the 1870s. Heinz catered both to high-end "white tablecloth" restaurants and to more modest establishments, such as lunch counters and cafeterias. In the late 1800s, Heinz products were available on steamboats and ocean liners; in the 1900s, they were served on commercial airliners. Today, the food-service business is one of the company's main areas of enterprise.
Recipe for Success: A Market for Prepared Foods:
As the United States became an increasingly urban and industrialized nation in the late 1800s, H.J. Heinz correctly predicted that Americans would welcome the convenience of ready-made store-bought food products. Home preparation of horseradish, ketchup, jams, and jellies took long hours and hard work. Many women appreciated the ease of simply opening a bottle of sauce or a crock of preserves.
Recipe for Success: A Pure and Safe Product:
Until the early 1900s, there were no laws to regulate food manufacturing. Producers of ketchups and other processed foods, including the Heinz Company, added coal tar dyes, preservatives, and fillers (such as boiled dried apples). A national investigation declared many ketchups "filthy, decomposed and putrid." H.J. Heinz, his son Howards, and others from the company realized the need to restore public trust and lobbied for laws to regulate the food industry. At the same time, H.J. Heinz directed his chemists to develop pure products. The Pure Food and Drug Act became law in 1906.
Recipe for Success: A Creative Sales Strategy:
Before the advent of self-service supermarkets in the 1920s, shoppers did not help themselves to goods on open shelves. The grocer handled the products, which were displayed behind a counter. Food manufacturers really had two sets of customers: the grocers who purchased products to sell in their stores and the consumers who bought food for their own use. The Heinz Company developed advertising strategies aimed at both groups, urging grocers to suggest Heinz products to their customers and customers to ask for their grocers to carry Heinz goods.
Recipe for Success: A Knack for Advertising:
The Heinz Company and other food processors worked to convince women that prepared foods fasted as good as homemade. Once consumers came to accept manufactured foods, the next step for Heinz was to distinguish his products from those of his competitors. In the 1800s, H.J. Heinz advertised his wares in city directories, newspapers, train schedules, restaurant menus, outdoor signs, streetcar signs, and at expositions. The Heinz products themselves bore distinctive, eye-catching labels designed to attract the consumer's attention.
Eating in America 1880-1920:
As Americans added processed foods to their meals, Heinz products enlivened the American diet with unusual sauces and condiments, such as chutney and Mandalay sauce. Although many people ate elaborate multi-course meals, Heinz and other manufacturers began to offer simple meals in cans: soups, baked beans, spaghetti in tomato sauce. Canned foods were expensive high-status items in the late 1800s, but after the turn of the century lower prices made them more affordable to working-class families. Throughout this period, Americans brought food from grocers, who served as middlemen between the producers and the consumers.
Eating In America: Crazy for Ketchup:
Ketchup (sometimes spelled catsup) was introduced to North America in the 1700s, probably as a variation of the fermented dish and soy sauces that the British found in southeast Asia. Ketchup was not always produced from tomatoes. Other main ingredients included walnuts, mushrooms, oysters, grapes, lemons, raspberries, and liver. Commercially prepared tomato ketchup in American kitchens in the 1800s. There were hundreds of different brands at the turn of the century. By 1900, Heinz was making more ketchup than any other manufacturer in the world.
Producing Heinz Goods: Quality Control:
In 1900, the Heinz Company established a chemistry laboratory staffed by bacteriologists, microscopists, and other scientists and technicians, called "food technologists." The quality control division was charged with checking the quality of produce used, the accuracy of recipes and cooking procedures, and cleanliness of the manufacturing process, and the uniformity of finished products. Food technologists also conducted research to improve the nutrition, flavor, and appearance of Heinz foods. The sample jars to the left contained products that were sent from the manufacturing division to quality control for testing and evaluation.
Promoting Heinz Goods:
Since many food processors were also engaged in manufacturing and selling similar sauces and condiments, how did Heinz make its products stand out?
From early on, Heinz designed its containers and labels to be eye-catching, attractive, and easily recognizable. The company also developed innovative promotional techniques, which included demonstrating products at grocery stores, fairs, expositions, and food shows. From the first notice in the Pittsburgh City Directory of the 1870s to multi-million dollar television commercials a century later, advertising has always played a key role in the marketing of Heinz foods.
Promoting Heinz Goods: Tradecards:
Like other manufacturers and merchants in the late 1800s, H.J. Heinz distributed trade cards to promote his products. Thanks to innovations in color printing, these small cards could be produced inexpensively. The front side boasted brightly colored illustrations, while the reverse side described the products available, either in a list or perhaps a more cryptic puzzle. These early advertisements reveal a consistent theme in Heinz's marketing strategy: the use of adorable, healthy children and wholesome young women to convey the idea that Heinz foods were also wholesome and healthy.
Promoting Heinz Goods: Atlantic City Ocean Pier:
Heinz's grandest advertising venture began in 1898 when the company leased a 1000-foot-long pier at Atlantic City, N.J. One of eight amusement piers in Atlantic City at the turn of the century, the Heinz Pier offered free admission. The glass pavilion on the pier was furnished with "oil paintings, mirrors, vases, statuary, and valuable bric-a-brac" in the finest Victorian tradition. A winter sun parlor was soon added to provide shelter for winter tourists. Visitors could write to their friends on complimentary souvenir postcards, sample several varieties of Heinz products, and hear presentations on the Heinz business. Destroyed by a hurricane in 1944, the pier was never rebuilt.
Promoting Heinz Goods: The 57:
As the story goes, the Heinz 57 trademark was created after H.J. Heinz spotted a sign advertising "21 Styles of Shoes" while riding on an elevated train in New York City in 1896. He liked the idea, and decided to advertise a number of varieties for Heinz. He began counting, and stopped at 57, not because that was the number of products the company made (there were many more), but simply because he liked the way it sounded. H.J. Heinz trademarked the slogan, which dominated the company's labels and advertising until 1969.
Promoting Heinz Goods: Brand Recognition:
H.J. Heinz realized early on that he had to distinguish his products from those of all the other picklers and makers of preserves. He designed eye-catching labels and developed distinctive trademarks (first, Anchor Brand, then Keystone Pickle & Vinegar Works, then 57 Varieties) to create what we call "brand recognition" today. To make sure the public knew his products, he placed the Heinz name everywhere he could, with signs on his delivery wagons and even larger signs on buildings and by roadways.
Promoting Heinz Goods: The Aristocrat Tomato:
In the 1930s, Heinz launched a new campaign to promote its tomato juice. In a series of magazine ads, the "Aristocrat Tomato" appeared as a variety of personalities sporting "gentlemanly" outfits, designed to convey the superior quality of Heinz tomatoes. For those who fell in love with the Aristocrat Tomato, he was available on cufflinks, key chains, and alarm clocks. The Aristocrat Tomato was perhaps the first of the famous "spokesmen" for the products of Heinz and its affiliates. In later years, Charlie the Tuna and Morris the Cat hit the airwaves for Star-Kist and 9-Lives, both owned by Heinz.
Heinz Abroad:
As early as 1904, Heinz goods could be purchased on all six inhabited continents. The growth of the Heinz Company was part of a broader trend of American international expansion. In 1898, the United States acquired Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines as a result of its victory in the Spanish-American War, and also annexed Hawaii. At the same time, American businesses were aggressively pursuing foreign markets. By 1901, American commercial expansion was so widespread that an Englishman wrote a book called "The Americanization of the World." The growth of the Pittsburgh-based Heinz Company overseas helped change the way people ate around the world.
Heinz Abroad: 57 Varieties on Six Continents:
In 1886, H.J. Heinz made his first foreign sale. While vacationing in Europe with his family, he called on Fortnum & Mason in London and presented seven of his products to the head of grocery purchasing. Using the standard practice of all Heinz salesmen, he offered tastes of each product to the Englishman, who promptly agreed to buy them all. The ease of this sale inspired H.J. Heinz to seek new markets overseas. He also solicited business to the north in Canada and to the south in Central and South America. Over the next two decades, Heinz expanded his reach farther and farther, sending his salesmen to the four corners of the earth to supply even the remotest villages with Heinz goods.
Heinz Abroad: A Pioneering Salesman:
In February 1902, Alexander MacWillie, one of Heinz's most productive salesman, set sail from San Francisco to sell Heinz goods in the Far East. Over the next two and a half years, MacWillie traveled to Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, the Philippines, Hong Kong, China, Japan, and South Africa. As the result of his efforts and those of the other international salesmen, Heinz distributing agencies were established in 21 cities in the Far East by 1908.
Eating in America: 1930-1960:
Military service in World War I introduced many men from immigrant and rural homes to "American" cooking. Across the country, American food tastes became more similar and more uniform in the 1920s and 1930s. The widespread availability of Heinz products helped promote this trend. Social influences also altered American dining habits. In the 1920s, as middle class families had less time for long dinners, convenience became an important reason for choosing foods. The Heinz Company's line of prepared foods, along with its menu suggestions in magazine and radio commercials, helped women streamline their families' meals.
Eating in America: World War II
In addition to producing army rations and airplane parts for the Allied forces, the Heinz Company continued to make products for use on the home front. Vinegar enjoyed renewed popularity as Americans preserved the bounty of their "victory gardens" (home vegetable gardens), and Heinz offered recipe suggestions for home canning. In addition to ready-to-serve soups, the company added condensed soups in the interest of conserving tin. As thousands of women took jobs outside the home to do their part for the war effort, Heinz directed its advertising to working women, as well as homemakers.
Producing Heinz Goods: World War II:
During the Second World War, almost half of the Heinz Company's total production went to the Allied armed forces. Along with ketchup and pickles, the company made special rations for soldiers. C-rations, designed for men in combat, contained meals such as "Meat and Vegetable Hash" and "Chopped Ham and Eggs". K-rations, for paratroopers, were lightweight packages containing meat, biscuits, confections, chewing gum, a beverage with sugar, salt tablets, a spoon, cigarettes, and toilet tissue. Heinz's War Production Division also re-fitted part of the Pittsburgh factory to produce glider planes and parts for wartime aircraft.
Producing Heinz Goods: Working For Heinz:
From 53 employees in 1875, the Heinz Company grew to employ some 42,200 people in 1995. H.J. Heinz did not pay his workers highly. In 1900, female employees made $3 per week, male steelworkers, by comparison, earned $10 per week. Heinz did provide an array of recreational and cultural amenities at the main Pittsburgh plant, including a swimming pool, roof gardens, reading rooms, an auditorium where organ music was played at lunchtime, and carriage rides through the city's parks and boat rides on its rivers in the summertime. For his salesmen, Heinz held annual conventions, where participants enjoyed a lavish banquet and received a handsome souvenir.
Eating In America: 1970-2000:
In the past few decades, American food tastes have followed two different paths. One path continues the trend toward convenience and speed in preparation and consumption. Heinz has continued to market products that meet these needs. For example, its Ore-Idea subsidiary is a market leader in frozen microwave-able foods such as French fries. The other trend has moved toward natural foods, ethnic cuisine, and gourmet meals that require lots of time to make. As a purveyor of processed food, Heinz has been less involved in catering to this niche.
Heinz Today:
The H.J. Heinz Company has come a long way from its humble beginning in the kitchen of the family house in Sharpsburg. The product line has grown from one -- horseradish -- in 1869 to more than 4,000 different varieties today. Similarly, Heinz's staff has grown to employ some 44,000 people full time, plus thousands of others part time or seasonally, in its factories, fields, and offices. The Heinz name can be found in groceries and restaurants in 200 countries around the world. The legacy of H.J. Heinz, as expressed by his motto coined over a century ago, "do a common thing uncommonly well," lives on.
Heinz Today: A Vision of the Future:
With powerful bands, loyal consumers, and state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities around the world, the H.J. Heinz Company is on course to achieve unprecedented growth and performance in the 21st century. The qualities of purity and wholesome goodness that first brought Heinz to prominence in Pittsburgh will remain synonymous with the brand as it reaches out to consumers in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. As the world shrinks, the people of Heinz around the globe will work together more closely than ever -- sharing ideas, adopting innovative practices, and creating exciting new products. As always, Heinz Ketchup will lead the way -- the global icon known as respected wherever there are people hungry for good taste, good nutrition, and good times.
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