How Henry Heinz Went From Bankruptcy to Ketchup Mogul

How much have you thought about the origin of that ketchup pack you tried to make sure didn’t hit the steering wheel when you enjoyed crispy fries on that road trip?

Well, you’re going to think about that origin now — particularly the origin of one Henry Heinz, who’s responsible for your road trip pleasures.

But his journey to leaving a legacy business that has done over 26 billion in revenue was not without its struggles. In fact, his journey includes depression, bankruptcy and a whole lot of other issues along the way.

In this solo episode, I break down them all.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Hello and welcome to Fail Your Way to Success podcast all about, you guessed it failing your way to success. This is a solo episode and it’s all about a guy I mentioned in the intro, the one the only Henry Heinz. Yes, the guy responsible for the fact that on that road trip, you could get a, your fries with a little to go ketchup package and eat it and get the grease stains on your wheel while you were driving. It’s all because of this guy. And the amazing thing about doing these solo episodes is that I get to research these incredible people who have had so many successes, as well as so many failures and break it down for you so we can find the lessons that are there. Now Henry Heinz, there have been multiple books written about him, he himself did not write a book. As a publisher, that’s what I’m obsessed with, is this idea that failure to success stories make the best books, but so this is the, the Cliff Notes version of the multiple books about Henry Heinz.

So I will tell you something. His family tree includes the Trump clan. Yeah, if you Google, Henry Heinz and Donald Trump, yeah, yeah, yeah, there’s some connection, not relevant. He was born in 1844. And he died in 1919. Kind of a long life for those days.

Here’s the background. So early life, he, the Heinz family, this very functional sounding pretty awesome family, they have this large garden where they grew their own vegetables. And at the age of nine, he, young Henry was already gardening and selling his harvest to other families. And already an entrepreneur at the age of 10. His family gave him his own three-quarters acre, and he soon bartered his wheelbarrow for a horse and cart to sell more products. So the same way you might have had a lemonade stand, you might have been selling magazine subscriptions, candy–it doesn’t matter, this young entrepreneurial spirit was there. So early success, here was his genius. He realized that if his condiments came in clear glass bottles, it can ensure the purity of the product. And so that was his big genius. So I do think that is a big point, is like, what is the point? What is the differentiating factor you come up with that makes you, what you do, your product, your business different than anyone else’s? So at 24, he partners with this dude, this neighbor guy, Clarence Noble, and Clarence’s brother, EJ, and they start manufacturing and marketing fruit preserves, mustard, pickles, horseradish and ketchup, then called, and still sometimes today called catsup. I’ve never called it catsup except just now.

So it grows into this big company. They employ 150 people during peak harvesting season. And they were producing 500 barrels of sauerkrauts, 15,000 barrels of pickles, 50,000 barrels of vinegar, lots of barrels, and it was featured in the Pittsburgh Press as one of the fastest, the city’s fastest growing businesses, but then struggles. Then the panic of 1873 hits hard and Heinz & Noble goes completely bankrupt. Our buddy Henry plunges into this massive personal depression. And that goes on for a couple years. So here’s the deal. Horseradish was in short supply. Nobody wanted to pay for pickled horseradish when they could buy it for almost nothing. So they declared bankruptcy among 5000 other enterprises, and all the property has to be sold to compensate for the losses. The worst part, the local paper, the Pittsburgh Leader, totally mocks them. And there’s this malicious headline that says, “Trio in a Pickle.”

And Clarence Noble can’t hack it. He’s basically like, I don’t want to be made fun of. F this. Heinz is in this total depression that that Christmas he couldn’t even afford to buy gifts for his kids. He couldn’t even get out of bed, allegedly. But like I said, he comes from, he came from this really cool, supportive, nice family. And his mom went and got him out of bed, gave him all her savings so that he could give his business a second try. At the time, he wrote in his diary that he titled Panic Times, “I am wearing brain and body out.” So there’s his struggle and then he finds success again. He says, “Do I need, do I need Noble?” No, he doesn’t. He founds F & J Heinz with his brother and a cousin named Frederick. And they started all up again, they’re manufacturing pickles, condiments, other canned goods. And in 1888, nice little number 1 8 8 8. That’s got to be a lucky year. And it was for him, he bought out his partners, reorganized the company, and named it HJ Heinz Company.

So here’s some of the inspiring stuff he did. So the tomato sauce, as I mentioned, he was a young gardener and entrepreneur. So the tomato sauce was made from fresh tomatoes that he grew in Pennsylvania fields. And rather than, you know, the canned shit. He also sincerely believed that people could, would buy his products if they could try them. So he was obsessed with traveling around the country to promote his products. So he’d go on trains, and he’d let commuters sample his products. He even invented a special cardboard spoon that clients could throw away after. It’s kind of like, you know, when you go to Jenny’s Creamery, or like one of those ice cream, places where it costs $12 for a scoop of ice cream and the way that they get you is they’re like, “Oh, try the samples.” He was doing that. He was doing that, cardboard ones.

He also, speaking of trains, once in 1896, he’s on a train in New York, and he sees an advertising sign that promoted 21 styles of shoes. And he thought, “That’s very clever.” Now by that time, although Heinz was making well over 60 products, he knew that thing that marketers know, which is that like, those numbers, those sevens, those ones, those threes are really appealing. So he came up with the 57-variety slogan that they’re well known for. So, you know, most of these things that takes billions of dollars and creatives on Madison Avenue to come up with these things. But he, he just did it in a train ride. And by the way, he combines his and his wife’s favorite numbers five, and seven.

So we’re seeing all these things that people who bounce back from success do. They have innovative ideas. They’re, he’s, he’s using fresh tomatoes, not the canned shit. He is now, he has so much confidence in his product, that he is convinced that if he goes on trains and gives it out to people, they’re gonna like it. You know, it’s, it’s not easy to get it out so he invented a cardboard spoon. He sees someone else, another company with this 21 thing. And he’s like, “Hey, that could maybe work for me.” Another thing he started to do, so he’s using the glass bottles, right? But then over time, ketchup or catsup starts to darken. And it looks kind of jank. So what he did is he slaps a label around the bottleneck. So constantly like coming up with an idea, finding a problem, finding a solution.

Now, here’s one of the most important things he ever did and it’s what he’s known for. One of the things he’s known for. Factories were gross in the 19th century. I mean, it was like, it was disgusting. So he became known for these pristine factories and the way he treated his workers so well. So it had amenities like, like I love. He provided clean, fresh uniforms so that they weren’t bringing dirty street clothes into the factory. He provided a manicure and washing service on site. Yes. All that being said, obviously, awesome guy. He was also cutthroat and I think that that’s also an important thing about bouncing back from success. And even people like Steve Jobs and these, these entrepreneurs that we revere, it takes a little bit of cutthroat in order to be successful and, and that’s just being real. So I will say, first of all he once, he once fired his brother. But another thing that he did once, when his competitors also started to use bottles just like him, he went and bought all the empty jars made of glass in town and used them and then loaded the rest onto a barge and drowned it in the river. Is that immoral? I don’t know. Is it clever? I don’t know.

So the big milestones, beefsteak sauce came out in 1911. Heinz baby food in 1930. Those ketchup packets I mentioned that you got to use so that you could eat your fries on your road trip, 1967. That top-down bottle–don’t you love the top-down bottle so you’re not just constantly hitting it and hitting it and trying to get the ketchup out–came out in 2003. Heinz mayo in 2018 and the pasta sauces just came out 2022. And here are the facts. Over 650 million bottles of Heinz are sold a year. The market share is 30% of the $2 billion, $2 billion plus global ketchup market.

Revenues over, this is in 2021, over 26 billion, over 36,000 employees. So what can we conclude? We can conclude that this is a man who had to declare bankruptcy. He was certainly not going to be the only entrepreneur who had to declare bankruptcy that we’re going to be talking about in this podcast. But he got innovative, he got clever, he got cutthroat. And the story of Henry Heinz is all about young success, hitting adversity, overcoming, hitting more adversity, overcoming, throwing some glass bottles in a barge and drowning them, and doing whatever he had to do to be successful. I will say one other thing that is not often talked about in talking about people’s success. He was clearly a very successful family man, because you know what, that’s a family company. And it has consistently, it has continued to become very successful. And I think what that means, I think that old Henry raised his kids right, because most families with intergenerational wealth, those companies do not last or they get bought out and the Heinz clan, I’m a big fan. And so with that I give you the end of my story with Henry Heinz and thanks so much for listening

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