In August 2011, Kraft Foods Inc. announced plans to split into two publicly traded companies—a snack food company and a grocery company. On April 2, 2012, Kraft Foods Inc. announced that it had filed a Form 10 Registration Statement to the SEC to split the company into two companies to serve the "North American grocery business". On October 1, 2012, Kraft Foods Inc. spun off its North American grocery business to a new company called Kraft Foods Group, Inc. The remainder of Kraft Foods Inc. was renamed Mondelēz International, Inc. and was refocused as an international snack and confection company. On November 19, 2013, an arbitration ruling ordered Starbucks to pay Kraft Foods Inc. $2.7 billion because of an early contract termination. The money will go to Mondelēz International, Inc.
Kraft and Heinz merger
On March 25, 2015, Kraft Foods Group Inc. announced that it would merge with the H.J. Heinz Company, owned by 3G Capital and Berkshire Hathaway Inc., to form the world's fifth-largest food and beverage company. Kraft's shares rose about 17 percent in premarket trading after the announcement of the deal, which will bring Heinz back to the public market following its takeover over two years prior. The companies completed the merger on July 2, 2015.
Sponsorships and promotions
Kraft is an official partner and sponsor of both Major League Soccer and the National Hockey League. Kraft Hockeyville began in 2006 as a Canadian reality television series developed by CBC/SRC Sports and sponsored by Kraft Foods in which communities across Canada compete to demonstrate their commitment to the sport of ice hockey. The contest revolves around a central theme of community spirit. The winning community gets a cash prize dedicated to upgrading their local home arena, as well as the opportunity to host an NHL preseason game. In 2007, it was then relegated to segments aired during Hockey Night in Canada. In 2015, Kraft Hockeyville was expanded into the United States, with a separate competition for communities there. From 2002 to 2014, Kraft sponsored the Kraft Nabisco Championship, one of the four "majors" on the LPGA tour. The company also sponsored the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, a post-season college footballbowl game, from 2010 to 2012. In 2011, Kraft has released an iPad app called "Big Fork Little Fork" which, in addition to games and other distractions, has information regarding how to use Kraft Foods in nutritious ways.
Brands
The company's core businesses are in beverage, cheese, dairy foods, snack foods, and convenience foods. Kraft's major brands include:
For years, Kraft purchased paper for its packaging from Asia Pulp & Paper, the third-largest paper producer in the world, which was labeled as a "forest criminal" for destroying "precious habitat" in Indonesia's rainforest. In 2011, when Kraft canceled its contract with Asia Pulp & Paper, Greenpeace Executive Director Phil Radford commended Kraft for efforts made towards forest protection, for "taking rainforest conservation seriously".
Controversy
Food quality
In 2013, food blogger and activist Vani Hari and blogger Lisa Leake launched an online petition drive to compel Kraft Foods Group, Inc. to remove controversial synthetic dyes Yellow 5 and Yellow 6 from its signature macaroni and cheese products. In April 2013, Hari and Leake delivered a petition with some 270,000 signatures to Kraft headquarters in Chicago, Ill., and asked the company to change its macaroni and cheese recipes. In October 2013, Kraft announced that it would remove artificial dyes from three macaroni and cheese varieties made in kid-friendly shapes, but not its plain elbow-shaped Kraft Macaroni and Cheese product with "original flavor". However, in 2017 the New York Times highlighted the continued prevalence of harmful chemicals of phthalates, which can cause male hormone disruption, that were found in high concentrations in Kraft boxed macaroni and cheese powder.
