With these contracts signed, Heinz agreed to begin the first factory building in 1897. The location of the factory was at 16th Street on the shore of Lake Macatawa. The site was excellent because it had railroad access on land and deep water shipping on the Great Lakes. The new factory and the cash crop for farmers was successful from the beginning and turned out to be a win win situation for factory workers, the growers, the pickle pickers, and Holland merchants.
In the next 10 years Heinz built 8 new modern buildings as it expanded its food product line to produce vinegar, catsup, and other food products. In time the Holland plant became the largest of its food processing plants in the United States. Today, it is the largest pickle processing plant in the world. In 2013 the H. J. Heinz company was sold to an investment group headed by Warren Buffet for 28 billion dollars.
Many employees in the Holland plant remember the German POW's that worked there in 1944. They were brought in every morning from a prisoner of war camp located 20 miles south of Holland in Allegan County. There was a group of about 30 who were supervised by an armed guard. They were working to help ease the labor shortage at Heinz during World War II.
In the early years of operation the farmers would bring their pickles in crates loaded on farm wagons pulled by horses. The factory would take in 250 to 300 loads a day during "green season." Later on the company built pickle receiving stations in areas where the most pickles were being raised. The Borculo receiving station opened in the 1920's.
The pickles were graded here into 5 different sizes and weighed at the station. The farmer was then paid by check and the pickles were brought to Holland. Heinz hired a lot of seasonal help in the summer months for "green season." I worked at the Holland plant for two summers while in high school. My brother Milt worked there for seven summers during high school and college years. We worked in the shipping department and worked in every plant in Holland. We loaded and unloaded boxcars and trucks. Most of the shipping involved full cases of pickle products. We unloaded loads of empty glass containers and even loads of bulk apples used in making cider vinegar. All the upper management and supervisors wore white uniforms and hats while at work in the factories.
My father contracted 3 acres of pickles each year for the Borculo station. While in full production we would pick 6 days a week covering the patch twice a week. The migrants who picked pickles were paid fifty percent of the pickles sold.
Today most pickles are harvested with a mechanical pickle picker.. The pickles are picked only once when the vines have the most pickles on them, and the plant is destroyed while being harvested.
Throughout the years many Borculo people worked in the Holland Plant and also in the Borculo receiving station. Some Borculo people I remember seeing in the Holland factory were Dorothy Geurink, Hattie Meppelink, Martin DeHaan, and my uncle Henry Blauwkamp. Henry Blauwkamp always wore his white uniform as he was part of the management team in the Holland office.
Bob Essenburg