The History of Heiner's Bakery

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Starting at age 15, Charles W. Heiner apprenticed at Schnieder’s Bakery for seven years, learning the intricacies of the trade.  He saved a fraction of his wages, aspiring to start his own bakery, until he finally amassed enough money to open his own business in 1905.  From a rented hotel room, he and is wife Kate, labored to turn out bread loaves, buns, rolls and pies that Heiner would stack in a basket and deliver door-to-door in the afternoons.  Four years later, the brand gained popularity and the Heiner’s relocated to a white framed building on Washington Avenue, in Huntington, West Virginia. 

Success came from frugality, hard work, and a doctrine that has passed from generation to generation:  use the best ingredients, deliver the freshest bread, and give customers exceptional value.  By 1985, Heiner’s Bakery was making 75 varieties of breads, rolls and buns.  Today, customers have even more bread choices including Old Fashioned, Italian, King Size, Heiner’s 35, Sunny Buns and Dinner Rolls which are delivered by a fleet of trucks to retailers up to 250 miles from Huntington. 

Once a small corner bakery which utilized a horse and buggy for deliveries, Heiner’s has evolved into a modern facility that covers more than a city block.  Three production lines run continuously turning out nearly 10,000 loaves of bread and countless buns per hour.  Under the direction of Charles E. Heiner, great-grandson of the first owners, the bakery still uses the finest ingredients, including spring wheat flour, which is shipped in covered-hopper railroad cars, from the Northwest.  The processing of dough - from blending, fermenting, mixing, proofing, and baking it to cooling, slicing and bagging is automated, insuring purity and quality.   

Nearly 500 employees work in the Huntington bakery and in the sales distribution warehouses located throughout West Virginia, Ohio, parts of Virginia and eastern Kentucky.  The state’s last family-owned wholesale bakery was acquired in 1996 by the St. Louis, Missouri-based Earthgrains Company.  In 2001, the Sara Lee Corporation purchased Earthgrains, now part of Sara Lee Food and Beverage.  The acquistions and time have scarcely affected Heiner’s.  Quality, service and value remain hallmarks of the company.