Why are pickles synonymous with Pittsburgh? A historian explains.
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Picklesburgh returns to the Boulevard of the Allies next week. But why are Pittsburghers so obsessed with pickles? The president of the Heinz History Center said it starts with a pickle pin.
Pittsburgh and pickles have been synonymous since Heinz put his pickles and brand on the map. Andy Masich, the president and CEO of the Heinz History Center, said Heinz adopted the mind of the consumer.
Heinz was Mr. Pickle
"When people think of H. J. Heinz, they usually think of ketchup, but in his day, he was Mr. Pickle. The first thing that H. J. Heinz ever bottled were pickles. The pickle pin started H. J. Heinz's legendary career as an intuitive brander."
Heinz was the first of many during his time to skip the middle man and sell wholesale directly to grocers.
"Heinz had salesmen going all over the world. They couldn't bring pickles with them but they had a little leather packet with tin pickles in it," Masich said.
The origin of the pickle pin
The idea of the pickle pin was born out of people's lack of attention to his booth.
"Here's the dill: it was 1893 at the World's Fair in Chicago. Heinz had a booth on the second floor of the exhibit hall. Nobody was taking the 100 steps it took to get up there."
That's when marketing genius Heinz came up with the idea to make gold covered luggage tags instructing people to head to his booth for a prize.
"They'd troop up the stairs by the hundreds, by the thousands, by the hundreds of thousands, they found their ways to the Heinz booth, they turned in their luggage tag and the prize that they got? It was the pickle pin."
Picklesburgh kicks off on Thursday, July 18, and goes until Sunday, July 21. It's the first year the festival will be four days long.
