The Kraft Heinz Company
The Kraft Heinz Company, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and markets food and beverage products in North America and internationally. Its products include condiments, sauces, dressings, and spreads; cheese, frozen potato products, and other frozen meals; meal kits, frozen snacks, and pickles; dry packaged desserts, refrigerated ready to eat desserts, and other dessert toppings; ready to drink and powdered beverages, and liquid concentrates; American sliced and recipe cheeses; mainstream coffee, coffee pods, and premium coffee; and cold cuts, bacon, and hot dogs. It offers its products under the Kraft, Oscar Mayer, Heinz, Philadelphia, Lunchables, Velveeta, Ore-Ida, Capri Sun, Maxwell House, Kool-Aid, Jell-O, ABC, Master, Quero, Golden Circle, Wattie's, Pudliszki, and Plasmon brands, as well as Bagel Bites, Claussen, A1, and Cool Whip. It sells its products through its own sales organizations, as well as through independent brokers, agents, and distributors to chain, wholesale, cooperative, and independent grocery accounts; convenience, value, and club stores; pharmacies and drug stores; mass merchants; foodservice distributors; institutions, including hotels, restaurants, bakeries, hospitals, health care facilities, and government agencies; and various e-commerce platforms and retailers. The company has a strategic partnership with the National Football League. The company was formerly known as H.J. Heinz Holding Corporation and changed its name to The Kraft Heinz Company in July 2015. The company was founded in 1869 and is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
What does it do?
Kraft Heinz is one of the biggest food companies in the world — it makes products you almost certainly have in your kitchen right now. Think Heinz ketchup, Kraft mac and cheese, Philadelphia cream cheese, Oscar Mayer hot dogs, and Jell-O. The company was created in 2015 when Kraft Foods and H.J. Heinz merged, combining two of America's most iconic food brands under one roof. It sells these products in grocery stores across North America and in over 40 countries worldwide.
Kraft Heinz matters because it sits at the center of a massive shift happening in consumer food habits — people are trading down from restaurants to home cooking, which should help, but they're also moving away from processed and packaged foods toward fresher options, which hurts. The company is also carrying a heavy debt load and recently posted a nearly $6 billion net loss, making it one of the more closely watched turnaround stories in the consumer staples world. With Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway as a major shareholder, every move the company makes gets extra scrutiny from the market.
How does it make money?
Kraft Heinz generates almost all of its roughly $24.9 billion in annual revenue by selling branded packaged food and beverages to grocery retailers, warehouse clubs like Costco, and foodservice operators like restaurants and schools. Its biggest revenue drivers are condiments and sauces (Heinz ketchup, mayo, hot sauce), cheese products (Kraft slices, Philadelphia cream cheese), and frozen meals. The company makes money on the margin between what it costs to source ingredients and manufacture goods versus the price retailers pay — but that margin has been under pressure from rising input costs like dairy, meat, and packaging.
Why do investors care?
The bull case for Kraft Heinz is essentially a turnaround story: can new management stabilize sales, cut costs, and breathe life back into brands that have lost ground to private-label (store-brand) competitors and healthier alternatives. Revenue has been slowly declining — from $25.8 billion last year to $24.9 billion this year — which signals the company needs to either innovate or acquire its way back to growth. For this to work, pricing power needs to hold, cost cuts need to stick, and the company's debt burden needs to come down meaningfully. Investors who get in at today's low price are essentially betting the brand portfolio is worth far more than the market currently gives it credit for.
Deep Dive
MemberA full investor briefing on The Kraft Heinz Company — history, leadership, risks, and outlook.