Manor Park Evangelical Church|Serving Christ and the Community in St. John's

The H.J. Heinz Company, now a global business with more than 4000 varieties sold in some 200 countries with a value of $10 billion, began in a vegetable patch. The founder, Henry Heinz was a dedicated Christian.

The early years

"Looking forward to the time when my earthly career shall end, I desire to set forth, at the very beginning of this Will, as the most important item in it, a confession of my faith in Jesus Christ as my Saviour."

Henry Heinz was born in a frontier village called Sharpsburg, near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1844. He was the eldest son of parents who had emigrated from Germany.

Boyhood days were spent like this: mornings in school, afternoons in his mother's kitchen garden and evenings selling the family's surplus vegetables in the village.

Henry was born into a Christian family. Jesus Christ was often talked about in his home, the Bible was the main text book at school and Christian living was the main theme in the home. His mother taught him wisdom which stayed with him all his life. Henry had a gift for selling. By the age of ten he was selling a wheel-barrow full of vegetables every day and by the age of 12 the wheel-barrow had been replaced with a horse and cart!

New responsibilities and expansion

When schooldays were over, Henry's work in the family garden flourished to such an extent that other workers were employed.

Henry married Sarah Young, a Christian girl, when he was twenty-five years old. In the same year he launched "Heinz and Noble" with a friend and neighbour. The first bottled product was not baked beans or tomato ketchup but horseradish, which was apparently quite difficult and unpleasant to prepare. He used his mother's recipe and bottled the product in clear glass to reveal its purity. (His rivals used dark glass to obscure cheap fillers!) Horseradish turned out to be an instant success!

As the business grew, Heinz sought out new places where he could sell his products. He came to England with the hope of moving into Europe. He travelled to Liverpool aboard the SS City of Berlin with his wife and four children. Heinz went to the famous London shop Fortnum and Mason's. They liked his products and decided to sell them.

The company was very successful and by the time Henry died in 1919 his firm had 6523 employees, 26 factories, 227 offices and 100,000 acres of farmland. What sort of man was Henry Heinz?

The measure of the man

Henry Heinz was a man of action. Office routine was almost unknown to him. He would scarcely stay for more than twenty minutes in a row at his desk!

But Heinz did not put all of his energy into building a food empire. He found time to run his local Sunday School. He prepared the meetings, led the singing and taught the children. He encouraged Sunday Schools in other churches and in lands as far away as Japan. He gave generously to Christian activities.

Heinz was a genuine Christian. His faith permeated every aspect of his life and work. Heinz was also a man of great integrity. At one stage in the development of his company he ran into serious financial difficulties which were engulfing many other companies. In fact his company went bust, leaving Heinz penniless. But he wrote down the names of everyone he owned money to in a book called the "M.O. Book" (Moral Obligation Book), determined to repay them later. When he was able to go back into business, his former creditors helped him because they trusted him so completely!

Heinz insisted on treating his workers well. He was one of the first to introduce welfare facilities such as staff rooms, dining rooms, locker rooms, dressing rooms, free medical treatment - and even manicure facilities - into his factories. When he died, the obituaries in the press listed his priorities well in the right order: "Henry Heinz, churchman, philanthropist, manufacturer" First and foremost Henry Heinz was a Christian, then he was someone who served others, and then he was a business man. In his Last Will and Testament he wrote these words, which sum him up well:

"Looking forward to the time when my earthly career shall end, I desire to set forth, at the very beginning of this Will, as the most important item in it, a confession of my faith in Jesus Christ as my Saviour."

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