Today is my 57th birthday, so you can probably guess what I'm having for dinner.
Beans on toast, of course, and soup.
I've had these tins of Heinz Cream of Tomato Soup for quite some time, especially the can on the left. It has a best before date of March 2018, when I was merely 53, and is notably bigger than the best before May 2023 version. Back then Heinz gave you 400g of soup for your money and now it's only 300g, and I doubt the price has fallen in response. The recipe however remains exactly the same - salt and sugars and all.
Another change is the 57 trademark, now a black number in a circle whereas previously it was the full 57 Varieties in gold. American pickle baron Henry J. Heinz came up with the famous slogan in 1896, supposedly inspired by a New York shoe shop which promised shoppers "21 styles". He wasn't trying to be accurate - Heinz sold at least 60 different products by then - and the 57 is said to be a juxtaposition of his and his wife's lucky numbers. Nevertheless the number 57 soon became synonymous with his fast-growing company, and is so engrained in global consciousness that I've long considered today to be my Heinz birthday.
Which made me wonder where Heinz's UK operation was based and whether perhaps it was in London... and a little research soon threw up three locations for a birthday visit.
The Heinz Factory, Harlesden(1925-2000)
Heinz soup was initially a luxury import, available in the UK only at Fortnum & Mason and Harrods. But in the 1920s the company invested in a large British factory to bring their products to the masses and chose a site in Harlesden between the railway and the canal. If you know the McVities factory on Waxlow Road, the Heinz site was at the far end of the street in a longer building with 'Heinz' written on the brickwork and a giant '57' balanced on the roof.
At first it was merely a bottling plant churning out a range of pickles and sauces, including salad cream and calves feet jelly, with canned goods like baked beans and soup following in 1928 and 1930 respectively. To enjoy a scratchy old newsreel following the production of those baked beans through the factory, click here.
Soon no cafe table was complete without a bottle of Heinz ketchup and no larder stocked without a can of Heinz soup, which triggered the need to purchase 31 adjacent acres. Output peaked at one million cans of beans a day in the 1960s, with Heinz the major local employer, but by now a larger modern factory in Wigan was ready to take production away. In the last years at Harlesden only the manufacture of tomato ketchup was left behind, and the workforce slumped to a mere 450 until in 2000 the factory closed for good. This being a valuable site they knocked the whole lot down and replaced it with a business park set out with large multi-purpose warehouses... from 57 varieties to 29 sheds.
Today the site has a single entrance on the Park Royal estate watched over by a security checkpoint at the gate. A stream of employees flows both ways, perhaps starting a shift in pharmaceutical processing, perhaps heading home after a day in specialist logistics. It's very bland back there, up several dead ends with copious space for parking. I preferred the option of a walk along the Grand Union towpath where the factory once showed its backside to the canal. It's now all millennial units, with the occasional tiny gap where employees are permitted a couple of benches facing the water. I did at least get to enjoy the sudden arrival of a heron and the sweet smell of wafted digestives, but it's no longer true that Harlesden Meanz Heinz.
Heinz HQ, Hayes(1965-2017)
Heinz management chose not to hang around in Harlesden and sought a greenfield site with additional space for laboratories and research. They invited American architect Gordon Bunshaft to design a campus on the site of a run-down Victorian house in Hayes, working under the restriction that only a small part of the grounds could be redeveloped. He designed two squat rectangular buildings using reinforced concrete, part sunk into the ground to make them less intrusive on the landscape. The main HQ had a central courtyard with a shallow reflecting pool, while bosses were gifted offices facing out towards open parkland. It was all considered pioneering when it opened in 1965, which coincidentally means it's celebrating its 57th birthday this year.
Unfortunately all the buildings are now empty, bar a security team watching over the site, with management having been turfed out in 2017 after Kraft swallowed Heinz. The drive that wends up from Mead House Lane has been obstructed by concrete blocks and the main entrance off Park Lane firmly locked while alternative tenants are sought. Indeed the entire perimeter of the site is so impressively screened by trees that when I checked on Google Streetview I wasn't convinced I'd be able to see anything. But I still went, which is how I found myself wolfing down the last bites of a hot cross bun from Kingshill Bakery as I stepped up to the gate. I could see the South Building at the end of the drive but very low down, as its creator intended, and also the roaming dogs that one of the warning signs was keen to promise.
My saviour was a public footpath connecting two separate housing estates, which meandered along the edge of the site around the site of a drained ornamental lake. If I lined up the metal fence carefully with the row of conifers behind it was still possible to find gaps offering a half-decent view of Heinz HQ, its concrete shining in the spring sunshine, adrift in fields resembling open countryside. Hayes Park must have provided a gorgeous backdrop for the executives charged with flogging spaghetti hoops or coming up with a new flavour of cheesy toast toppers, back when working amid natural surroundings was very much not the norm.
That said, the view from the new administrative offices is even more impressive...
Kraft Heinz HQ, London SE1(2017-)
Today what's left of Heinz's UK empire trades from the 20th and 21st floors of the Shard. It means soup and beans sharing desk space with Lea & Perrins, Maxwell House and those thin slices of processed cheese, but that's massive global food and beverage conglomerates for you. I must say I'd never twigged before that the Shard was the location of the SE1 9SG address on the back of every can. But I'm pleased to say that the Cream of Tomato I'm having for dinner tonight displays Hayes, Middx, UB4 4AL on its label instead, because a 57th birthday really ought to be celebrated by one of 57 Varieties from a 57 year-old listed building.
