OUR FAMILY TRADITION

TO KNOW OUR ROOTS IS TO KNOW OUR PLACE IN THE WORLD.

 

The Heinz family’s glassmaking tradition goes back to 1523. That of the HEINZ-GLAS company dates back some 400 years to 1622. Today HEINZ-GLAS is one of the world’s leading manufacturers and finishers of glass flacons and caps for the perfume and cosmetics industry. The key to our success? Our roots are here and we are strongly grounded. This knowledge of where we come from shows us where we are going. And it works – thanks to the tireless commitment of 15 generations of the Heinz family and their loyal employees.

*04.06.1950
Carl-August Heinz
Carl August Heinz was born on 4 June 1950. After graduating from high school in Uffenheim, he studied business in Nuremberg and received an M.B.A.

He joined the company in 1976, and had to assume sole management in 1977 after the much too early death of his father Adolf. He has accomplished a lot since then and grown the company into a globally active corporate group.

Far-sighted entrepreneurial expertise and targeted investments under Carl-August Heinz contributed to the success of Heinz-Glas und Plastics on the international packaging market.

However, Carl-Aug. Heinz wanted above all to make a contribution to the reunification of Germany, which is the reason why he already became involved in the nearby Thuringian small glassworks in Piesau and purchased it completely in 1991. Since then he has expanded it into a company – which is internationally competitive.

Personally, Carl-Aug. Heinz works in a marketing study group for improving the site conditions for the Thuringian-Franconian Rennsteig region and founded a non-profit foundation with the goal of promoting education, job training, conservation, environmental protection and protection of animals in his native region.
*28.02.1984
Carletta Angelika Heinz
Carletta was born on February 28, 1984 – the daughter of Gabriele Birkner-Heinz and Carl-August Heinz. After finishing her high school exams at the Kaspar Zeuss High School in Kronach, she successfully completed her studies at the Friedrich Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in 2012 with a degree in Business Administration.

Since December 2013, Carletta has been working in the HEINZ-GLAS Group, initially gaining practical experience in controlling and HR. In 2014, she establishes sustainability as a strategic goal within the company and founds a global sustainability team.

Since July 2019 she has been part of the management board as managing partner. She would like to keep the HEINZ-GLAS Group as a family-owned company and strategically orient it towards the future.
1921 – 1977
Adolf Heinz
After four years of middle school in Kleintettau, he attended high school in Marktbreit. He completed his business apprenticeship at the forwarding company Schenker & Co in Munich. He had barely worked one year in his father’s company when he was drafted on 1 January 1941 to fight in the war. Following his return from a prisoner of war camp, he studied the business and worked together with his oldest brother Heinrich Heinz (18/12/1903 – 14/04/1973) to run their father’s company (three other brothers died young).

Together with their faithful employees, the brothers succeeded in starting operations in a branch plant in Schleiden/ Eifel in 1949. This was the establishment of Heinz Plastics (in 1955) and the modern expansion of the parent company in Kleintettau (especially thanks to an IS series machine 1962 and a completely electric glass melt tank 1971).
*19.08.1952
Jeannette Heinz-Drayton
Jeannette Heinz-Drayton was born as the second child of the couple Adolf and Ilse Heinz on 19 August 1952. After attending the local elementary school in Kleintettau and secondary school in Erlangen, she attended schools for hotel management at Tegernsee and Leysin in Switzerland during 1967/68 and planned to enter the hotel business as a manager with foreign language and business skills.

In 1972 – however, she switched to the foreign sales department at Siemens in Erlangen. She still works at Siemens in export and has continued her education in IT too at various sites whilst holding various positions.

Since 1990, she has been a permanent member of the Foundation Council (formerly advisory board) of HEINZ-GLAS Group. In addition to this, she has been a co-managing director of a number of holdings and financial companies within the group since 1990 and contributes in this way to maintaining the corporate group as a family-run company.
1903 – 1973
Heinrich Heinz
At the end of the 1920s, Heinrich Heinz, the eldest son of Ludwig Philipp Heinz, went to Hamburg for his commercial training, followed by a subsequent period in London. From this point onwards, he helped to significantly extend existing overseas contacts. Orders were obtained, which allowed the successful continuation of the company. In 1939/40, the first year of the Second World War, Heinrich and his brother Kurt took over company operations and shared the unenviable task of operating a glass factory through a period in which it was soon almost impossible to obtain raw materials. After the War and the establishment of new German borders, new sales channels needed to be created, as well as new workers and new raw material suppliers. This was one of the reasons why a second glass factory was built in Schleiden/Eifel in 1948. As of 1949 – packaging glass was manufactured there, initially under very difficult conditions. The far-sighted Heinrich Heinz took over the management and soon achieved impressive results despite all the difficulties. It was he – who in 1954, suggested to his (much) younger brother Adolf, that he ought to start the manufacture of plastic bottles in the main factory in Kleintettau.
1877 – 1968
Ludwig Philipp Heinz
The glassworks had to be closed temporarily in 1917 due to World War I.

The company was managed in this critical time by Ludwig Philipp Heinz, who was seriously injured in WW I, but was saved by a lucky coincidence and a fellow soldier from his hometown (with the last name Heinz!). Due to the fact that his brother Heinrich had already died before the war, Ludwig Philipp had to face the challenges alone. In the following years, he developed the glassworks into the first semi-automatic operation in the Rennsteig region.

The successful development of the company was then seriously effected by World War II. There was a brief mandatory shutdown in 1943 but despite this, the first completely automatic machine for glass working was introduced in 1943.

Ludwig Philipp Heinz was named the first honorary citizen of the municipality of Kleintettau on the occasion of his 80th birthday in 1957.
1854 – 1931
Carl August Heinz senior
Carl August Heinz was born on 30 May 1854. He is the person whose name the company now has, as he registered it for his glassworks in 1881. When a fire destroyed the almost 250-year-old village glassworks in 1904, Carl August Heinz built a new production site at the lower end of the village where the parent company of HEINZ-GLAS is still located. When he was 77 years old, Carl August Heinz was able to experience his son Ludwig Philipp’s purchase of the old glassworks site where the first glassworks in Kleintettau was built. Carl August Heinz died one year later on 28 November 1931.
1854 – 2021
Family Tree
Addicted to glass