The H. J. Heinz, Wigan

factory A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. ...

is a

food manufacturing Food processing is the transformation of agricultural products into food, or of one form of food into other forms. Food processing includes many forms of processing foods, from grinding grain to make raw flour to home cooking to complex ind ...

plant owned by

H. J. Heinz Company The H. J. Heinz Company is an American food processing company headquartered at One PPG Place in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company was founded by Henry J. Heinz in 1869. Heinz manufactures thousands of food products in plants on six contin ...

, based in

Kitt Green Kitt Green is a suburb of Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, Wigan. It is the location of a H. J. Heinz, Wigan, Heinz food processing plant.

, Orrell,

Wigan Wigan ( ) is a large town in Greater Manchester, England, on the River Douglas, Lancashire, River Douglas. The town is midway between the two cities of Manchester, to the south-east, and Liverpool, to the south-west. Bolton lies to the nor ...

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority, combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: City of Manchester, Manchester, City of Salford, Salford ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is one of the largest food processing plants in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

and the largest H. J. Heinz facility in the world. It produces over one billion cans of food annually and employs around 850 people.

Background

H. J. Heinz varieties first went on sale in

Fortnum & Mason Fortnum & Mason (colloquially often shortened to just Fortnum's) is an upmarket department store in Piccadilly, London, with additional stores at The Royal Exchange, St Pancras railway station, Heathrow Airport in London and K11 Musea In Hong ...

in 1886. After

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, with a headquarters established in Hayes,

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, Heinz started exporting baked beans, canned spaghetti and tomato ketchup to the United Kingdom. Heinz opened its first UK production facility in

Harlesden Harlesden is a district in the London Borough of Brent, North West London. Located north of the Grand Union Canal and Wormwood Scrubs, the Harrow Road flows through the centre of the area which goes eastwards to Central London and west towards ...

in the 1920s. By 1933 nearly all Heinz products sold in the UK were manufactured domestically. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

the Harlesden facility was bombed twice. To help increase food production after the war, Heinz took over a former

munition Ammunition (informally ammo) is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. Ammunition is both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines) and the component parts of other weapo ...

s factory in 1946 at Standish near Wigan. Heinz LTD grew sixfold between 1945 and 1956, and due to this increased demand it needed a new large manufacturing plant in the UK.

Opening

Needing a new consolidated factory outside London, the site in

Northwest England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of 7,052,000 in 2011. It is the ...

was chosen due to its ease of access to the agricultural industry, high-quality water supply, highly skilled local workforce and good transportation links. The site had good rail and road connections to the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

(

Liverpool Docks The Port of Liverpool is the enclosed dock system that runs from Brunswick Dock in Liverpool to Seaforth Dock, Seaforth, on the east side of the River Mersey and the Birkenhead Docks between Birkenhead and Wallasey on the west side of the r ...

) and Europe via the

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, which allow for easy and low-cost access to both raw products and the export of manufactured processed food. The Kitt Green factory was opened on 21 May 1959 by the

Lord Chancellor The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. The ...

, the Rt. Hon.

David Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir David Patrick Maxwell Fyfe, 1st Earl of Kilmuir, (29 May 1900 – 27 January 1967), known as Sir David Maxwell Fyfe from 1942 to 1954 and as Viscount Kilmuir from 1954 to 1962, was a British Conservative politician, lawyer and judge who combine ...

. A few weeks later it was visited by

Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 to 6 February 1952 as the wife of King George VI. She was the l ...

on 24 June 1959.

Operations

Heinz factory at Kitt Green from Gathurst Road (geograph 4367169)

The chosen site allowed easy expansion. By the 1980s, the factory employed around 3,000 people, and during the decade was converted to high-speed automation. It had taken over the production of all UK products from Harlesden except

Heinz Tomato Ketchup Heinz Tomato Ketchup is a brand of ketchup manufactured by the H. J. Heinz Company, a division of the Kraft Heinz Company. History It was first marketed as "catsup" in 1876 In 1907, manufacturing reached 12 million bottles and it was export ...

. After Harlesden closed in 2000, ketchup production was moved to Holland. A

steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...

plant with a capacity of 140 tonnes per hour was installed in 2005, one of the largest of these type of installations in the UK. The factory celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2009, with a visit by HM Queen

Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...

and

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, later Philip Mountbatten; 10 June 1921 – 9 April 2021) was the husband of Queen Elizabeth II. As such, he served as the consort of the British monarch from El ...

who also opened a new packaging hall. In 2013, the factory was listed by

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...

as one of the world's top five manufacturing units, alongside: Reliance's Jamnagar Refinery; Volkswagen's car plant; NASA's Kennedy Space Center; POSCO's steel plant. As of 2019, the factory employs 850 people. It makes 1.5–3 million cans of

Heinz Baked Beans Heinz Baked Beans are a brand of baked beans produced by the H. J. Heinz Company. They have been sold as "Heinz Beanz" in the United Kingdom since 2008. History In 1886, Heinz Baked Beans were first sold at the Fortnum & Mason department store ...

per day and more than 1.3 billion cans of food a year, which is around annually. It is one of the largest food processing plants in Europe and the largest of Heinz's factories around the world. Investment in the site has increased since Heinz's merger with Kraft in 2015. A total of £113.6 million was invested between the merger and August 2018, including £20 million for modernising the filling and packing operations in the plant.

Future

In January 2021, Kraft Heinz began running trials moving goods by

freight trains Rail freight transport is the use of railroads and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers. A freight train, cargo train, or goods train is a group of freight cars (US) or goods wagons (International Union of Railways) hauled ...

to their Wigan distribution centre. The aim of the trials is to reduce the company's long-term

carbon footprint A carbon footprint is the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by an individual, event, organization, service, place or product, expressed as carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Greenhouse gases, including the carbon-containing gases carbo ...

in comparison to road transportation.

References

External links

H. J. Heinz UK
{{Heinz

Manufacturing plants in England Buildings and structures in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan Companies based in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan