Kraft Heinz

Illustration of James Lewis Kraft (1874–1953) and Henry John Heinz (1844–1919), the founding fathers of the companies that merged into today's The Kraft Heinz Company

The merger of Kraft Foods and H.J. Heinz was agreed by the boards of both companies, with approval by shareholders and regulatory authorities in early 2015.[12][13] The new Kraft Heinz Company became the world's fifth-largest food and beverage company[14] and the third-largest in the United States.[12][15] The Kraft Heinz co-headquarters are in Chicago at the Aon Center and in Pittsburgh at PPG Place, with other offices across the United States, Canada, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.[16] The companies completed the merger on July 2, 2015.[17]

The merger did not affect the naming rights to Heinz Field, home of the Pittsburgh Steelers.[18]

On February 17, 2017, it was reported that Kraft Heinz Co. had made a $143 billion approach to take over the British-Dutch multinational Unilever, a significantly larger competitor with 126,000 more employees and £24bn larger revenue than Kraft Heinz.[19] Unilever declined the initial proposal.[20] The takeover was subsequently abandoned on February 19 soon after UK Prime Minister Theresa May had ordered a scrutiny of the deal.[19]

In May 2018, Kraft Heinz launched Springboard Brands, a business focused on growing organic, natural, and "super-premium" food brands.[21][22] Later that year, it was announced Kraft Heinz would acquire the Primal Kitchen brand as part of the company's Springboard Incubator.[23] The $200 million deal was completed in early 2019 and was expected to generate $50 million in new annual revenue.

In July 2018, Kraft Heinz announced it was committing to make all of its global packaging recyclable, reusable or compostable by 2025.[24]

In April 2019, it was announced Miguel Patricio, former Chief Marketing Officer of InBev would replace Bernardo Hees as CEO of Kraft Heinz.[25] Patricio took position of CEO in late June 2019 and Alex Behring remained chairman of the company.[26] Later that year, Paulo Basilio returned to his role at Chief Financial Officer and Corrado Azzarita assumed the position of Chief Information Officer.[27][28]

In June 2019, Kraft Heinz reached a milestone in achieving a 100% Corporate Equality Index score from the Human Rights Campaign.[29] The score recognized the company for its LGBTQ inclusion efforts and becoming a leader in the area among food CPG companies.

In September 2020, Kraft Heinz reached a deal to sell part of its cheese business to French multinational dairy products corporation Lactalis for $3.2 billion.[30][31] Kraft Heinz will retain Philadelphia Cream Cheese, Kraft Singles, Velveeta Processed Cheese and Cheez Whiz Processed Cheese businesses in the U.S. and Canada.[32] This also includes the Kraft, Velveeta and Cracker Barrel Mac & Cheese businesses and the Kraft Sauces business worldwide.

On September 15, 2020 Kraft Heinz announced its new Strategic Transformation Plan including a new company purpose, "Let’s Make Life Delicious" and an all new vision, "To sustainably grow by delighting more consumers globally."[33] The next day Kraft Heinz also released its updated 2020 Environmental Social Governance (ESG) report with goals to make 100% of Kraft Heinz product packaging recyclable, reusable, or compostable by 2025 and plans to sustainably source 100 percent of Heinz Ketchup tomatoes by 2025.[34][35]

As of 2020, in addition to both Kraft and Heinz, many more global brands are included in the Kraft Heinz portfolio:[36]

For the fiscal year 2017, Kraft Heinz reported earnings of US$11.0 billion, with an annual revenue of US$26.2 billion, a decline of 0.6% over the previous fiscal cycle. Kraft Heinz's shares traded at over $61 per share, and its market capitalization was valued at over US$136 billion in September 2018.[37]

In February 2019, shares in Kraft Heinz fell to a record low of under $35, after the company reported a $10.2bn loss for the previous year as the company announced that it would take a $15.4 billion write down of its Kraft and Oscar Mayer brands, slashed its dividend, and acknowledged that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had opened a probe into its accounting practices.[38] In August 2019 Kraft Heinz announced a further $1.22 billion in write downs.[39] In August 2019, Kraft Heinz announced it was bringing back its former CFO, Paulo Basilio, who had served in the position until 2017, to replace David Knopf, saying it wanted a "seasoned veteran" in the job following a series of accounting errors.[40]

In September 2020, Kraft Heinz announced its new enterprise strategy including plans to cut $2 billion in costs over five years resulting in an estimated generation of 4% to 6% adjusted earnings per share growth.[41] The announcement resulted in multiple stock upgrades by CFRA and Guggenheim due to the renewed positive financial outlook of the company.[42]

• List of food companies
• List of brand name food products
• List of dairy product companies in the United States

• Susanna, Kim (March 25, 2015). "How the New Kraft Heinz Co. Is About to Take Over Your Kitchen". ABC News. Retrieved March 26, 2015.

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