Kraft Heinz — Business Overview

What does Kraft Heinz do?

Kraft Heinz is one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world, selling a wide portfolio of branded products to consumers through grocery stores, restaurants, and online retailers. With approximately $25 billion in net sales in 2025, the company owns or licenses some of the most recognizable names in the grocery aisle, including Kraft, Heinz, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia, Lunchables, Velveeta, Maxwell House, and Kool-Aid. About 35,000 employees across 40 countries help make and sell these products.

The company organizes its business into four geographic operating segments, two of which are its formal reporting units:

The product portfolio is organized into eight consumer-driven platforms, each assigned a strategic role (Accelerate, Protect, or Balance) that guides how much investment and attention each one gets:

How does Kraft Heinz make money?

Kraft Heinz sells branded packaged food and beverage products to retailers and foodservice operators, who then sell them to consumers. Revenue is generated each time a case of ketchup, a box of mac and cheese, or a pack of hot dogs moves through the supply chain to a store shelf or restaurant kitchen. The company sells through grocery chains, club stores (like Costco), mass merchants (like Walmart), convenience stores, pharmacies, and e-commerce platforms, as well as to hotels, restaurants, hospitals, and other institutions.

Customer concentration is notable, particularly in North America. Walmart alone accounted for roughly 21% of total net sales in 2025 — every single year from 2023 through 2025. The top five customers in North America represented about 46% of that segment's sales, meaning Kraft Heinz is meaningfully dependent on a handful of large retail partners for a large chunk of its revenue.

What market does Kraft Heinz operate in?

Kraft Heinz competes in the global packaged food and beverage industry, a large but mature market in developed economies. Grocery staples like condiments, cheese, deli meats, and powdered beverages are well-established categories with slow overall growth. Competition comes from both other major branded manufacturers and the private-label (store-brand) products that retailers push alongside them.

Several secular trends create headwinds and tailwinds for the industry. On the challenging side, consumers in developed markets have been shifting toward fresher, less processed, and more nutritious foods — putting pressure on legacy brands like Velveeta or Jell-O. On the opportunity side, emerging markets offer faster population and income growth, giving companies with established international brands a long runway for expansion. E-commerce is also reshaping how consumers discover and buy food, rewarding brands with strong recognition.

Who are Kraft Heinz's main competitors?

The packaged food industry is dominated by a handful of large multinational companies, making it a relatively consolidated space at the top — though competition from store brands and smaller regional players is constant. Kraft Heinz competes against large national and international food companies as well as private-label products sold directly by retailers. Named competitors are not listed in the filing, but the landscape broadly includes companies like Nestlé, Unilever, Conagra Brands, and Campbell's, depending on the category.

Kraft Heinz's claimed competitive advantages center on brand strength, scale, and portfolio breadth. The company emphasizes brand recognition and loyalty, product innovation, taste, and marketing effectiveness as the main levers it uses to compete. Its scale allows centralized procurement of commodities like dairy, meat, coffee, and packaging materials, which can provide cost advantages. However, competing on all of these dimensions simultaneously — especially against private label — requires ongoing advertising, promotional, and R&D spending.

Where does Kraft Heinz operate?

North America is unquestionably the center of gravity for Kraft Heinz. The vast majority of revenue flows through U.S. and Canadian sales, supported by a manufacturing and distribution network spread across the continent. Walmart's 21% share of total company revenue alone signals how North America-centric the business is.

Internationally, Kraft Heinz has meaningful operations in developed markets (primarily Europe and Australia/New Zealand) and a growing presence across emerging markets in Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. In developed international markets, the Heinz brand carries most of the weight. In emerging markets, the company also relies on regional brands like Master (Asia), ABC (Indonesia), and Quero (Brazil). The company both manufactures and sells in many of these regions, though the filing does not break out precise revenue percentages by geography beyond the segment structure. Geopolitical risks are acknowledged — particularly around tariffs and trade policy, which the company says contributed to increased supply chain costs in 2025 — though no single international market is called out as uniquely risky.