Tag Archives: Heinz in the UK

Full of beans: Heinz in the UK

Heinz is best known in Britain for baked beans, tinned soup and condiments. The business became successful due to a dedication to quality, a concentration on relatively few product lines, and a strong commitment to marketing.

Background
Henry John Heinz (1844 – 1919) was born in Pennsylvania, the son of a Bavarian immigrant. He sold bottled horseradish sauce in Sharpsburg from 1869. He aimed to emulate the standard set by Crosse & Blackwell, then considered one of the greatest food businesses in the world. He packaged his products in clear glass bottles in order to demonstrate its quality. Heinz relocated his operations to Pittsburgh in 1872.

Henry John Heinz (1844 – 1919) in 1917

Fortnum & Mason of London held the highest reputation of all food retailers. H J Heinz cold-called on the head of its grocery department in 1886, and managed to persuade him to stock all of the seven product lines he brought with him.

Heinz was the largest pickle manufacturer in the world by 1891.

H J Heinz used the “57 varieties” slogan from 1892. He actually had more product lines than this, but decided that the tagline had a pleasing resonance.

Establishment of a British subsidiary
A British subsidiary was established to manage Heinz imports from North America in 1886. Heinz products were distributed in the North of England from 1899.

H J Heinz appointed Charles Hellen (1866 – 1944), a perfectionist and “the best man I’ve got” as general manager for Britain from 1905. Hellen spearheaded the acquisition of Batty & Co, makers of the popular Nabob Pickle, in order to gain a manufacturing site for Heinz products. The Batty brand was phased out in 1910.

Salad Cream was introduced in 1914, and was the first product that Heinz created specifically for the British market. It was supposedly formulated by Charles Hellen himself, although the recipe likely owed a debt to Batty’s own “Dr Kitchener’s Salad Cream” product.

Heinz UK was established as a private company in 1917.

H J Heinz died in 1919, leaving an estate valued at £1.1 million (about £115 million in 2015).

Heinz becomes a mass producer in the UK
Heinz UK sales quadrupled between 1919 and 1927.

A 22-acre factory site was established at Harlesden, London, from 1925. The larger factory, with a staff of 500, allowed Heinz to mass produce, and pass on the economies of scale to the consumer.

A view of the Harlesden site by Russell Trebor in 1992

Baked beans were manufactured in the UK from 1928. Soups and spaghetti production began in 1930. All products sold in Britain were manufactured domestically by 1933, except for four tomato-based products which were imported from Canada.

A new soup factory was established at Harlesden from 1934. The three-storey building produced millions of tins of soup a year, across eighteen different varieties. The extension saw the Harlesden site increased from 22 to 40 acres. The site produced 100 million cans a year by 1936.

Howard Heinz (1877 – 1941), the company president, donated £20,000 (£1.2 million) to buy aircraft for the British war effort in 1940. He also invited staff to send their children to America for the duration of the war at the company’s expense.

Heinz UK was converted into a public company, Heinz Ltd, valued at over £9 million, in 1948. The American parent company owned 91 percent of the shares.

A former munitions factory in Standish, Lancashire, was acquired to produce Heinz baby food in 1948.

Heinz Ltd grew sixfold between 1945 and 1956. The company employed around 5,100 people.

Heinz was granted a Royal Warrant to supply Queen Elizabeth II in 1955.

It was claimed that Heinz was the best known brand name in Britain in 1957. By this time the British ate more baked beans per capita than the Americans. By this stage Heinz products in Britain were formulated differently from the American versions, apart from Tomato Ketchup, which remained consistent across every market.

A second large factory is established in Wigan
Demand remained high for Heinz products, and a new factory was established outside Wigan in 1959. Situated on a 130-acre site, it was the largest food factory in the British Commonwealth. It cost £6.5 million to build and employed 2,500 people. Two thirds of production was dedicated to soup, and one third to baked beans.

Meanwhile, the Standish site was closed and administrative offices were relocated to Hayes, London.

A 1925 advertisement for Heinz Tomato Ketchup

Heinz was by far the largest producer of canned foods in Britain by 1960, and produced over one million cans of baked beans and over one million cans of soup every day. The company enjoyed far greater market share for its products (other than tomato ketchup) in Britain than it did in its home country.

Tinned ravioli was launched in 1965, and spaghetti hoops were introduced from 1969.

Heinz dominated the baked beans market with an 80 percent share by 1967. That year saw the popular “Beanz Meanz Heinz” slogan introduced. Heinz held 83 percent of the baby food market by volume in 1967. Heinz had 60 percent of the canned soup market (and 40 percent of the overall soup market) and 31 percent of the sauce market (behind HP) by 1968. The company had 80 percent of the tinned spaghetti market by 1969.

Heinz acquired a 40 percent stake in Manor Vinegar Brewery of Burntwood, Staffordshire in 1969. A supplier to Heinz since 1917, it was the single largest vinegar producing facility in Britain, and produced about five million gallons a year. Vinegar bottling was transferred from Harlesden to Burntwood.

Annual sales of Heinz Ltd surpassed £100 million (£1.2 billion in 2015) for the first time in 1972. Heinz of America acquired the eight percent of its British subsidiary that it did not already own for £7.7 million in 1977.

The Harlesden factory employed over 2,000 people in 1980.

Heinz sold its Manor Vinegar Brewery stake to Hazelwood Foods for £1 million in 1981.

The rise of supermarket own-label products
Heinz began to suffer from the late 1970s into the 1980s as supermarket own-label products began to take significant market share in traditional Heinz categories such as tinned soup. Own-label accounted for 37 percent of the baked bean market by 1982. Heinz reduced its workforce from 8,600 to 4,800 between 1975 and 1985.

High-speed automation was introduced to the Wigan and Harlesden factories in the mid to late 1980s.

A view of the Heinz factory outside Wigan (2009). Credit: David Ashcroft

Heinz marketing began to emphasise product quality in order to counteract the threat from own-label. The company began to manufacture own-label baked beans for supermarket chains such as Tesco from 1993. Heinz maintained that they only produced value beans for supermarkets, to a different recipe from their branded product, which enabled them to capture a greater share of the market without damaging their brand equity.

Heinz acquired Farley of Plymouth from Boots for £94 million in 1994. Farley was the largest manufacturer of infant formula in Britain.

The Harlesden factory was closed with the loss of 450 jobs in 2000. Production was relocated to Wigan.

Heinz acquired HP, with brands including Lea & Perrins and Daddies Sauce, for £470 million in 2005.

The HP factory in Aston, Birmingham, was closed in 2007. Production of HP Sauce was relocated to the Netherlands.

Kraft Heinz
Heinz merged with Kraft in 2015. The Wigan site received an investment of £113 million between 2015 and 2018.

Heinz employed around 2,100 people across the UK and Ireland in 2019. The 53-acre Wigan site produces over one billion cans of food each year, and is the largest food factory in Europe, and the largest canning plant in the world. In Britain, Heinz has the largest market share in tomato ketchup (80 percent), baked beans (70 percent), canned soup (70 percent), brown sauce (70 percent) and baby food.