Kraft Heinz is calling it quits. The maker behind everything from Heinz ketchup to Lunchables just announced a split that separates roughly $15 billion in sauces and spreads sales from about $10 billion in grocery sales — and the internet is already treating it like a messy split between two pop culture icons.
On Tuesday, September 2, the Fortune 500 food conglomerate said in a press release that it will divide into two independent, publicly traded companies through a tax-free spinoff.
One spin-off — provisionally called Global Taste Elevation Co. — will lean on faster-growing brands like Heinz ketchup, Philadelphia cream cheese, and Kraft Mac & Cheese. A chief executive for that business has not yet been named.
“Kraft Heinz’s brands are iconic and beloved, but the complexity of our current structure makes it challenging to allocate capital effectively, prioritize initiatives and drive scale in our most promising areas,” Miguel Patricio, the company’s executive chair, said in a statement.
The other spin-off, North American Grocery Co., will be led by current CEO Carlos Abrams-Rivera and will center on staples such as Oscar Mayer, Lunchables, and Kraft Singles. “This move will unleash the power of our brands and unlock the potential of our business,” he said.
Of course, it didn’t take long for the internet to do what it does best and react.
"Let me guess, the new companies will be called Kraft and Heinz!?" one person wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
"I wonder if this will mean more or less Oscar Mayer wiener trucks," another wondered.
"Kraft and Heinz: spent 10 years together, realized it was just a situationship," chimed in a third.
"Guess even processed cheese and ketchup need their space sometimes," someone else quipped.
"Can’t they stay together and keep up appearances until the ketchup is 18?" another joked.
The move essentially undoes the 2015 mega-merger between Kraft and Heinz, a deal engineered by billionaire investor Warren Buffett and Brazil’s 3G Capital. At the time, the pitch was simple: create one of the biggest packaged food players in the world. But shifting consumer habits, rising costs, and an appetite for fresher foods left the company struggling to keep up.
Buffett told CNBC he was “disappointed” that Kraft Heinz decided to go forward with the split — which he noted will cost about $300 million and take a year to complete — and he argued that dismantling the company will not fix its underlying problems.