Kraft Foods

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Kraft Foods Inc.
Type Public (NYSE: KFT)
Founded 1903
Headquarters Northfield, Illinois, USA
Key people Irene Rosenfeld, CEO
Industry Food Processing [1]
Products See brands listing.
Revenue $34.356 billion USD (2006)
Net income $3.06 billion (2006)
8.9% profit margin
Employees 90,000 (2006)
Website www.kraft.com

Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT) is the largest food and beverage company headquartered in North America and the second largest in the world after Nestlé SA.

The Philip Morris Company (now known as Altria Group), acquired Kraft for $12.9 billion in 1988, eventually merging it with another food subsidiary, General Foods, which it had acquired in 1985. In 2000, Philip Morris acquired Nabisco and merged it with Kraft. Altria sold 280 million Kraft shares via an initial public offering in 2001, retaining an 88.1% stake. On January 31, 2007, after months of speculation, the company announced that its 88.1% stake would be spun off to Altria shareholders at the end of March 2007. Kraft is now an independent publicly held company.

Kraft is headquartered in Northfield, Illinois, USA, a Chicago suburb. Kraft Foods markets many popular brands in more than 155 countries.

Kraft Foods is named after James L. Kraft, who founded the original wholesale cheese business in 1903.


Contents

Then Kraft Foods sold several brands after its Nabisco merger. It sold Lifesavers Co. to Wrigley, its certain Canada grocery items, particularly Del Monte and Aylmer to CanGro, its sugar confectionery business and its pet snacks business under the Milk-Bone brand to Del Monte Foods.

Kraft bought several brands parallel to its portfolio, like Boca Burger Co., which makes Boca meat alternatives, Fruit2o, and Veryfine beverages.

Altria announced on January 31, 2007, that it will sell all the remaining Kraft Foods shares to Altria's shareholders; each will be given 0.7 share of Kraft for every Altria share they have.

Investor Nelson Peltz bought a three-percent stake at Kraft Foods and is talking with the executives on revitalizing the business,[1] with options such as buying Wendy's fast food chain or selling off Post cereals and Maxwell House coffee.[1]

In July 2007, the company bought Groupe Danone's biscuit (cookie) and cereal division for $7.2 billion.[1][2] While two years earlier firestorms of protest had arisen over plans for American PepsiCo's hostile takeover of the French company, Kraft's announcement was not met with the same protests, although a possible deal comes with strings: promising not to close French factories and keep the cookie headquarters near Paris for at least three years.[1] Kraft is much more powerful in the US than in foreign markets.[1]

In November 2007, Kraft Foods agreed to sell its cereal unit to Ralcorp Holdings, a major private-label food maker, for $2.8 billion in a form of a spin-off merger. This would add 50% to Ralcorp's sales, to $3.3 billion, and will be used for Kraft's debt payment, which is at $13.4 billion, in danger of a downgrade by Standard and Poor's.[3]

Kraft Foods is an official partner and sponsor of Major League Soccer and sponsors the Kraft Nabisco Championship, one of the four "majors" on the LPGA tour.

Kraft Foods' core businesses are in beverage, cheese and dairy, snackfoods and confectionery, convenience foods and cereals.

Notable products produced by Kraft Foods are

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

In 1992, the gelatin industry, in particular Kraft's Atlantic Gelatin plant in Woburn, Massachusetts, which supplies the vast majority of Jell-O, came under scrutiny for a history of noxious smells, toxic waste releases into Boston Harbor, and a policy of corporate secrecy. Heading off a rash of local complaints, industry lobbyists invited Massachusetts state representatives Paul Casey and Carol Donovan into the plant. However, the representatives were barred from going past the conference room. Repeated requests for a plant tour by journalists were refused. In 1993, the plant was hit with a $250,000 fine for violating the Clean Air Act of 1970. In a February 4, 1996 article, the Associated Press reported that a Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection official was one of only a few outsiders who had seen the inside of the Woburn plant.

1950s Kraft delivery van in Australia, advertising "Velveeta", "Vegemite" and "Kraft Cheddar"
1950s Kraft delivery van in Australia, advertising "Velveeta", "Vegemite" and "Kraft Cheddar"

In 2005, Kraft was sued for spamming its Gevalia coffee brand by Hypertouch, an ISP. Kraft was accused of sending multiple waves of spam to the ISP, and the action brought under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 act. At the time of writing, the suit had not yet been ruled upon.[4]

Kraft began a major restructuring process in January 2004, following a year of declining sales, (blamed largely on the rising health consciousness of Americans), and the sacking of co-CEO Betsy Holden. The company announced closures of 19 production facilities worldwide and the reduction of 5500 jobs, as well as the sale of 10% of its branded products. Kraft Foods expects to eliminate 8000 jobs, roughly 8% of its workforce.[citation needed]


  1. ^ a b c d e No ketchup, please. The Economist (2007-07-05). Retrieved on 2007-07-17.
  2. ^ Getting better?. The Economist (2007-07-12). Retrieved on 2007-07-22.
  3. ^ "Kraft to Shed Post Cereals Unit," Associated Press, November 15, 2007.
  4. ^ Kraft sued over Gevalia spam


v • d • e
Kraft brands
Capri Sun | Crystal Light | Dairylea | General Foods | Jell-O | Kool-Aid | Kraft Dinner | Maxwell House | Oscar Mayer | Post Cereals | Tang | Toblerone | Vegemite
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraft_Foods"
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