Henry J Heinz was an industrious soul who helped his father in the family brickyard in Pittsburgh. Grateful for his support, his parents gave him a small garden of his own when he was ten. He soon began to sell the vegetables he grew and the garden grew to three and half acres. The budding businessman bought a horse and cart when he was 12. When he was 15, he took the first step into "convenience" foods. Henry J Heinz started to bottle horseradish.

He realized how important it was to offer something different - something that was better than anything you could buy elsewhere. Henry J Heinz packed his horseradish in clear glass bottles and at the time it was revolutionary. People had always bought their horseradish in colored glass, which was used by manufacturers to conceal the fact that what was inside the bottle included cheap fillers like...