Figure 1.--The boy pictured in the ad here wears a sweater, short pants, kneesocks, and heavy shoes. Although he seems to be playing, he wears a tie, perhaps he is going to school. The image is undated. We would guess the eraly 1930s. Interestingly he does not wear knickers which were much more common at the time. Also notice the stripes on the kneesocks. |
One of the most recognizable American brand names is H.J. Heinz. In any large comapny like Heinz, there is a good deal of American hostory woven into the comapny's history. Heinz is today best known for their catchup, but there are a wide variety of other products offered by the comapny. The add we have here is for baked beans which Heinz assures us is good for the healthy boy pictured. He wears a sweater, short pants, kneesocks, and heavy shoes. Although he seems to be playing, he wears a tie, perhaps he is going to school. The image is undated. We would guess the early 1930s. There are several intersying aspects to this advertisement. The boy wears short panrs rather than the more common knickers. Also he wears a rtie, even though he is obvioysly involved in energetic paly. Note te stripped turn over-top-kneesicks, even though patterened socks wre more common.
The Heinz advertisement seen here is undated (figure 1). We would guess the early 1930s, but it coukld just as easily be the late 1920s. The fact that the boys wears short pants rather thab kneepants suggezst that the ad is no earlier tjha avout 1925. The hightop boot-like shoes suggest that the ad was not done late in the 1930s. This we believe that a date from 1925-1935 is the mopst likely.
One of the most recognizable American brand names is H.J. Heinz. In any large comapny like Heinz, there is a good deal of American hostory woven into the comapny's history. Heinz is today best known for their catchup, but there are a wide variety of other products offered by the comapny. The H.J. Heinc compamy asserts, "From the beginning, the driving idea was quality." They report, "Everything except that has changed and changed again through 12-plus decades of the H. J. Heinz Company wave after wave of revolutions in nutrition, agronomy, processing, distribution, marketing, packaging, sales and earnings." The company began in 1869 with very small recvenues to $10 billion. Heinz markets have grown from local to national to global and from one product to a dozen, made famous through the 57 Varieties slogan at the tirn of the century. Never before has an ad slogan been so understanded. Heinz now offers several thousand today products!
The idea of quality, that old-fashioned virtue now born again in the most advanced theories of management, has been the Heinz mainspring. Heinz's first product was of all things, horseradish and the glass of its bottle was There was a reason: while competitors extended their horseradish with fillers, concealed from view in green glass jars, founder Henry John Heinz took his stand on quality and proudly displayed his product in clear transparent bottles. See he offered, no leaves, no wood fiber, no turnip filler. Henry was only 25 years old. The food processing industry was even younger, and commercial preservation in cans and bottles had yet to earn the public trust.
Modern American consumders will be sirprosed to learn that the typical American urban diet in the 1860s was a rather dreary affair. Staples as of 1869 were limited to bread, potatoes, easily kept root vegetables, and meat--usually dried, smoked or salted. Green vegetables were not readily availablde afyer the first frost of the fall. Cucumbers and pickles were the salads of winter; grapefruit was a distant rumor,
except in Florida; tomatoes were called "love apples," an exotic Mexican fruit. And, Henry Heinz was taking the first steps in a journey that would help to change all that, and alter the American diet forever.
H.J. Heinz proceeded to launch a series of new products. After horseradish came pickles, sauerkraut and vinegar. It was at this time that the modernn concept of the HJ Heinz producer range began to take shape.
The company's products were delivered by horse-drawn wagons to grocers in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Processing, packing and headquarters offices shared a two-story farmhouse in Sharpsburg, at the city's northern edge. Within five years, Heinz and partner L.C. Noble had moved to larger quarters, on their way to becoming one of the nation's
leading producers of condiments. Heinz & Noble could count among its assets a hundred acres of garden along the Allegheny River, 30 acres of horseradish, along with 24 horses, a dozen
wagons, and a vinegar factory in St. Louis.
In the banking panic of 1875, this overextended young enterprise was forced into bankruptcy. Heinz then discovered the public acceptabce of his products. The grocers he had been supplying were unwilling to extend credit even to feed his family. With brother John and cousin Frederick, he started over in 1875.
In the depression brought on by the banking collapse, it was a difficult first year, but one in which a new product was introduced tomato ketchup. Red and green pepper sauce soon followed, then cider vinegar and apple butter, chili sauce, mincemeat, mustard, tomato soup, olives, pickled onions, pickled cauliflower, baked beans and the first sweet pickles ever brought to market in America. It was at this time that the American enchantment with pickles began toi take shape. It should be remembered that this was at a time when green vegetables were not available during the winter and there were no frozen foods. The American table was brightening, along with the Heinz ledger.
As biographer Robert C. Alberts has observed, Henry Heinz had hit on two of what he called the Important Ideas that were to shape his business from that day on: 1) That most people are willing to let someone else take over a share of their kitchen operations; and 2)
That a pure article of superior quality will find a ready market through its intrinsic value if properly packaged and promoted. Conventional wisdom now, these were bold conceptions in their day, foreshadowing what have since become the bedrock assumptions of modern quality control and consumer marketing. And, there were sequels: 3) To improve the product in glass or can, you must improve it while still in the ground; and 4) The world is our market.
Many English consumers will be sirprised to know that Heinz is an American compoany. HJ Heinz in 1886 sailed with his family to England, including in his luggage a Gladstone bag packed with "seven varieties of our finest and newest goods." In London, he called on Fortnum & Mason, England's leading food purveyor, whose buyer tasted and promptly
accepted all seven products for distribution. Heinz's first overseas office opened in 1896 near the Tower of London, joined in 1905 by a factory in Peckham and in 1919 by a
site in Harlesden that soon became the second English plant of Heinz. Others were to follow until Heinz became a Purveyor to the Queen, an unsusual achievement for an American comany, and most British food shoppers came to regard Heinz as a British company. The Queen at the time was Queen Alexandra, the wife of Edward VII.
HJ Heinz in 1919 died of pneumonia at the age of 75. He was succeeded by his son, Howard, who had already begun running much of the company's operations. By this time, the younger Heinz had introduced a regime of scientific processing and quality control into a system that included 25 factories and 200 smaller facilities, ranging from pickle salting stations to bottle plants and a seed farm. Through the Howard Heinz era, as in that of his father, all growth was internal; even overseas ventures were built from scratch.
Growth from within continued to be the policy for most of the tenure of H. J. Heinz II, who became president in 1941. The first exception was the acquisition of a food processor in the Netherlands in 1958, and soon the exception became the rule. In the next few years,
companies were acquired in Italy, Portugal, Mexico, and several in the United States, crowned by the addition of Star-Kist in 1963 and Ore-Ida in 1965.
Under R. Burt Gookin, who became president in 1966, the pace of acquisitions and growth quickened. By 1972, Heinz had reached the billion-dollar mark in sales, and Mr. Gookin was ready to reorganize the company under an international management team. To the new post of senior vice president for North America and the Pacific, he named Anthony J. F. O'Reilly, then 35, who had earned high marks as managing director of the company's United
Kingdom operations. This was a period in which the company moved rapidly into new
countries, new technologies and new ways of thinking. Dr. O'Reilly
became president and CEO in 1979, launching an era in which
Heinz became a leader in the nutrition and wellness revolution. He
created major company production bases in Spain, Portugal and
New Zealand and penetrated such challenging markets as South
Africa, Russia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, South Korea, China,
India, Egypt, Botswana and Zimbabwe.
William R. Johnson took the helm as President in 1996, CEO in
1998 and Chairman in 2000. He continues Heinz's international
growth strategy by acquiring new companies in the Netherlands,
Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Costa Rica. He
launched growth and reorganization plans to focus on core
categories of ketchup, condiments and sauces; frozen
meals/snacks; tuna and seafood; quick-serve meals/soups; pet
products and infant feeding/nutritional.
H. J. Heinz Company today is an enterprise involving more than
45,800 people in over 200 major locations worldwide, with leading
brands on six continents. Heinz brand names such as Ore-Ida,
Smart Ones, Bagel Bites, Wattie's, San Marco, 9-Lives, Kibbles 'n
Bits, Pounce, Farley's, Plasmon, Bio Dieterba, StarKist, John
West, Petit Navire, Greenseas, Classico, Wyler's, UFC, Orlando,
ABC, Honig, Hak, DeRuijter, Olivine and Pudliski appear on
more than 5,700 different products here and abroad. Heinz also
uses the famous names Weight Watchers, Boston Market and
Linda McCartney under license. And the major thrust of Heinz today? Today's Chairman of Heinz agrees with the first: "I am convinced that quality is the way
forward for Heinz," Mr. Johnson tells investors. "It will enhance our
performance, expand our margins, improve our customer service,
and provide Heinz employees with a more satisfying workplace
environment." Or, as Henry John Heinz liked to put it: "To do a common thing
uncommonly well brings success."
The ad copy here is verty simple, "Good for him!".
One of the most recognizable American brand names is H.J. Heinz, they are today best known for their catchup. The add we have here is for baked beans which Heinz assures us is good for the healthy boy pictured. Interestingly, Heinz once trumpted in catchup as "red magic". Today Heinz sells green and purple catchup, primarily appealing to kids. Heinz once focused more on picklesm which it one offered 57 different varieties.
Few food products are more associated with America than tomato catchup. Anerican were often deried in Eirope for dumping catchup on a wide variety of foods. No comopany is more associated with catchup than Heinz. An interesting development occured in America during the 1990s that was little reported. Salsa replaced catchup as the most popular condoment in America. This was a reflection of two developments. One was the greater willingess of the foremnerly Americam consumer to experiment with interestring new tastes. Theother of course is the increasing impact of the exapnding Hispanic population on the American economy, bith directlt and indirectly.
American ads today target the average family and average boys. Mass advertisers would not target their ads to the affluent class unless they were selling a product that the affluent class would be likely to purchase in disporinate quantities, ceratinly not a product like catcghup or baked beans. Here despite the fact that the company is tgfrying to sell mudane baked beans, the boys clothes suggest that they are targetting affluent Americamn families. The tie, the short pants (rather than knickers), and the stripped tirn-over-top kneesocks all suggest boys from affluent fanmilies rather than the average boy.
The boy pictured in the ad here wears a sweater, short pants, kneesocks, and heavy shoes (figure 1). Although he seems to be playing, he wears a tie, perhaps he is going to school. The image is undated. We would guess the eraly 1930s. Interestingly he does not wear knickers which were much more common at the time. Also notice the stripes on the kneesocks. We notice that many American boys wore kneesocks woth patterened turn over tops, both with with knickers and short pants. We are not quite sure why the Heinz advertisment showed the color stripes which were more assiocaited with exclisive private schools.
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