Bowling Green Heinz Plant

When I was a boy, my hometown of Bowling Green, Ohio, spent several days in late summer/early fall smelling strongly of ketchup. I do not know how adults reacted, but the tomato ketchup (or is it catsup?) smell was an important milestone of the year. It meant that summer was ending, that school was right around the corner, and that we would have plenty of ketchup for French fries. The tomatoes that grew in sandy patches of the old Black Swamp were coming home in a form that even kids could understand. Any hot dog vendor could speak to the importance of ketchup.

The reason Bowling Green smelled so strongly of cooking tomatoes was the H. J. Heinz plant located just east of the courthouse. Opening in 1914, Heinz built the factory on the property of the former Ohio Cut Glass factory. There had been a short-lived natural gas boom in Bowling Green at the end of the nineteenth century, but the gas, and the industry it brought, was short lived. The Heinz plant covered several acres near where the state had just opened a new teachers’ college in 1910 that evolved into Bowling Green State University.

Heniz built the Bowling Green plant as a “field to bottle” facility; all major steps from growing tomatoes to bottling the product could be done in Bowling Green. The ketchup factory grew into a bustling production facility. As one of the city’s major employers, established in one of the most productive agricultural districts in the world, Heinz set many records. At one time, the Heinz plant in Bowling Green was the largest tomato ketchup factory in the world. In 1948, it set a record for the most ketchup processed in one day.

The plant had an interesting mix of workers. Heinz Bowling Green was one of the first to employ large numbers of women. Because of the rush of work at harvest time, Heinz had to use temporary help. During World War 2, German and Italian prisoners of war were made to labor at planting the millions of tomato plants needed to supply the Heinz factory. Some of the first migrant farm labor came to Heinz, first from West Virginia, then from Mexico. Staying only three weeks or so, the Mexican laborers were housed and fed by Heinz, although admittedly in sparsely furnished housing.

Heinz closed the Bowling Green factory in 1975. Processing equipment was antiquated by then, and the price of wastewater treatment had climbed enough that Pittsburgh based H. J. Heinz & Co, could not see a future for its Bowling Green operation. Another Heinz facility in nearby Fremont continues to operate.

The Heinz buildings in Bowling Green were destroyed by fire in 1980. Student apartments now occupy the site. Bowling Green no longer basks in the odor of ketchup in the fall. But the memory of so many tomatoes, and so much ketchup, lingers on.