Henry J. Heinz

Henry John Heinz (October 11, 1844 – May 14, 1919) was an American entrepreneur who co-founded the H. J. Heinz Company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was involved in the passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act. Many of his descendants are known for philanthropy and involvement in politics and public affairs. His fortune became the basis for the Heinz Foundations.

Henry John Heinz was born in Birmingham, Pennsylvania, to John Henry Heinz (1811–1891), and Anna Margaretha Schmidt (1822–1899). John Henry Heinz was born Johann Heinrich Heinz to parents Johann Georg Heinz and Charlotte Louisa (née Trump). Heinz's mother's family, the Trump family, was originally from Kallstadt of the Palatinate, which at that time was part of the Kingdom of Bavaria. In 1840, John Henry immigrated to Birmingham, where he got a job making bricks and then met and married Anna in 1843, who herself had recently emigrated from Kruspis (today a part of Haunetal), Hesse-Kassel. Then when Henry was five years old, his parents moved to Sharpsburg where Henry’s father went into the brick making business for himself. Anna Schmidt was the daughter of a farmer and church administrator, Johann Adam Schmidt, and Dorothea (Thiel) Schmidt. Anna came from Hesse-Kassel, which was a Reformed Protestant (Calvinist) territory, so she was raised in the Calvinist Christian faith. Anna's husband, John Henry Heinz, was a Lutheran, and they raised and confirmed their son to that faith.

Henry John Heinz began packing foodstuffs on a small scale at Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1869. There, he founded Heinz Noble & Company with a friend, L. Clarence Noble, and started marketing bottled horseradish, soon followed by sauerkraut, vinegar, and pickles. The company went bankrupt in 1875. The following year, Heinz founded another company, F & J Heinz, with his brother John Heinz and a cousin, Frederick Heinz.

The company grew and, in 1888, Heinz bought out his other two partners and reorganized it as the H. J. Heinz Company, the name carried to the present day. The company was incorporated in 1905, with Heinz serving as its first president and retaining that position for the rest of his life.

The company's slogan, "57 varieties," was introduced by Heinz in 1896, though by then, the company was selling more than 60 different products. Heinz said he chose "5" because it was his lucky number, while "7" was his wife's lucky number.

At the time of Heinz's death in Pittsburgh at the age of 74, the H. J. Heinz Company had more than 20 food processing plants and owned seed farms and container factories.

Heinz led a successful lobbying effort in favor of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906. During World War I, he worked with the Food Administration. He was a director in many financial institutions, and was chairman of a committee to devise ways of protecting Pittsburgh from floods.

Heinz married Sarah Sloan Young on September 3, 1869. She was of Scots-Irish ancestry and had grown up in the Presbyterian Church. They had five children: