Kraft Heinz, the Chicago-based global food giant is to be shorn in half, a decade after it was merged.
The company, which produces everything from Philadelphia cheese to Heinz’s tomato ketchup and the sort-of cheese Kraft Singles, will be split into two and not necessarily along immediately obvious lines.
The proposed new companies have veritable humdingers for names, too.
The provisionally Christened Global Taste Elevation Co will focus mainly on sauces, spreads and seasonings. It’ll house Heinz, Philadelphia and Kraft Mac & Cheese.
According to 2024 figures, it could generate as much as AU$23 billion in sales. Kraft Heinz is on the hunt for a new chief exec to run this business.
The other is provisionally known as the North American Grocery Co and led by the Kraft Heinz chief executive, Carlos Abrams-Rivera.
It will take on Oscar Mayer meats, Lunchables boxed meals and Kraft Singles processed cheese among other grocery staples. It’s annual sales should be in the region of AU$15 billion.
“Kraft Heinz’s brands are iconic and beloved, but the complexity of our current structure makes it challenging to allocate capital effectively, prioritise initiatives and drive scale in our most promising areas,” Miguel Patricio, the executive chair of Kraft Heinz.
Currently, Dentsu’s Carat is the global media agency for Kraft Heinz’s media planning and buying, with its Melbourne office handling the operations in Australia. Omnicom’s TBWA\Auckland and Melbourne offices handle the creative in New Zealand and Australia, respectively.
It’s unlikely at this stage that anything particularly meaty will change in the relationship between the agency groups at the moment.
The separation of the companies is expected to be complete in the second half of next year. We’ll be checking back in beforehand to see if the Kraft Heinz pie is up for slicing and dicing.
