How Heinz balances the timeless with the timely to drive long-term growth
Consistent brand investment has been a vital ingredient in the ongoing success of Heinz baked beans, says chief growth officer Karen Owen.
· Marketing WeekBy Niamh Carroll 25 Sep 2026 6:46 am
Heinz Beanz has been a staple for millions of British consumers over the past 140 years thanks to its ability to constantly balance what’s “timeless” with what’s “timely”, says the brand’s chief growth officer.
While taste is obviously critical, “emotional” connection is as important as having a “superior” product, says Karen Owen, who looks after European and Pacific developed markets at Kraft Heinz, parent company of Heinz.
“The Heinz brand has been able to, year in, year out, continue to connect emotionally and irrationally with consumers all around the world,” she tells Marketing Week.
This combination of taste credentials and building an emotional connection is what keeps it “top of mind and as relevant today as it was 140 years ago”, Owen says.
Consumer occasions and needs have obviously evolved a great deal over the last century and a half. However, the standard Heinz Beanz product lives up to modern consumers’ health demands.
We’re really looking at how the category can continue to grow and attract new consumers in a variety of new ways, and we’ll keep iterating and evolving.Karen Owen, Heinz
“You’ve got great tasting Heinz baked beans, where half a can gives you 10 grams of protein, eight grams of fibre, and it’s super easy to make, and all the family can enjoy it,” Owen says.
While the core product offers a rounded, healthy and tasty meal, Heinz continues to innovate for what consumers want in the “here and now”, she says. It looks to existing food trends; for example, it saw consumers adding spices to its beans and launched a range of curry beans.
Heinz feels confident its core beans product has enduring strong appeal for today’s consumers, but at the same time, it is not looking to rest on its laurels, says Owen.
A distinctive proposition
Heinz Beanz has been known for tasty, filling and convenient meals for over 140 years, and that’s something the brand is looking to continue to do, albeit in slightly different ways.
Last year, it partnered with retailer Ocado to launch heat-to-eat bean pouches. This launch allowed Heinz to fine-tune its proposition and flavours, says Owen, before rolling the range out nationally this year.
That has delivered strong results, both for the brand and the category, she says. For Heinz’s category business, it was 60% incremental, and for the supermarket heat-to-eat pouch category as a whole, it delivered 30% incremental growth.
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In some ways, propositions like this may appear to be a long way from the core product, says Owen, but it delivers on crucial qualities of convenience, taste and health.
“We’re really looking at how the category can continue to grow and attract new consumers in a variety of new ways, and we’ll keep iterating and evolving,” she says.
That could be through completely new products or through packaging tweaks. While the latter might sound more minor, it’s actually essential in delivering convenience and meeting consumer needs, says Owen.
‘Speed of culture’
Innovation and product meet consumers’ needs, but the Heinz team are strong believers that the emotional and irrational is a crucial ingredient in building long-term success.
That idea of “irrational love” is something it has brought to life through its ‘Too Good To Leave Behind” campaign, which was based on stories of tins of Heinz baked beans being confiscated at airport security checkpoints. The ad brought to life the idea that many British consumers love the product so much they might try to jam cans in their luggage.
Outside of big campaign ideas, tapping into culture is increasingly important for Heinz. To execute this approach, the brand leans on its internal agency The Kitchen. Owen says the team term this the brand’s “fan-owned agency”, which enables the brand to “move at the speed of culture”.
I’m not just solely focused on business, because if it isn’t right for our brand or isn’t right for the consumers or the category, then that’s a very short-sighted approach.Karen Owen, Heinz
“To be able to do that, you’ve got to have people on the ground that are really connected with our consumers and understanding what matters to them both in the category, in culture in general, and where then could Heinz have a point of view and intersect,” she says.
It’s a team that is “led from the grassroots” of the business, rather than being top-down. The Kitchen has representation in every major market, and allows Heinz to move quickly to play into specific cultural moments.
A recent example of that was when Heinz tapped into a moment between celebrity couple and reality stars JoJo Siwa and Chris Hughes, who used spaghetti hoops to profess their love to each other.
Heinz released a custom necklace in honour of the pair, something which caught their attention and took off on social media. While sometimes the impact of these sorts of activations can be difficult to quantify, Heinz saw a direct commercial impact from this activity.
“We saw a 23% uplift in our spaghetti hoops year-on-year as a result of this activity,” Owen says.
Consistent investment
As with any piece of media activity, the reactive culturally-led moments have to tap into a wider strategic plan for the brand.
At the same time as tapping into cultural moments with social activity, Heinz has a strategic communication plan to keep a drumbeat of activity going. It believes in combining more traditional advertising campaigns with these more reactive pieces.
“What these cultural conversations do though is often intersect when consumers are more open-minded to the category and it allows the Heinz Beanz brand to stay top of mind,” Owen says. “It’s a combination, and what we’ve got to make sure we’re doing is showing up at every touchpoint where a consumer is open to the category.”
What really matters is “consistent investment”, she says.
“We have been investing behind Heinz baked beans consistently over the past couple of years, and as a result, it is growing,” she says.
Whether it’s by tapping into cultural moments, or with brands partnerships – Heinz recently teamed up with Heineken beer to offer packs of “Heinzeken” ketchup and beer, for example – the brand is strategic about the opportunities it says yes to.
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Owen says the business always looks at opportunities through the lens of “three vectors” – where it helps build the equity of the Heinz brand, whether it addresses a consumer need, and if it helps build the business.
“I’m not just solely focused on business, because if it isn’t right for our brand or isn’t right for the consumers or the category, then that’s a very short-sighted approach,” Owen says. “It has to really be right for the Heinz brand and also for our consumers.”
Owen says the Heinz team is constantly asking itself, “what’s timeless about the brand and has to be nurtured and and protected?”
“And then what’s timely? So, again, that’s then where we keep refreshing our brand so it’s always remaining relevant,” she says “That’s what forms our blueprint for how we constantly grow and ensure that our brands remain relevant for today and for the next generation.”