By now we’ve all probably heard about the teaming up of the H.J. Heinz Co. and Kraft Foods Group Inc. Unfortunately, it does not appear that we’ll be seeing the mash-up above (bummer, I know).
This mega-company fusion will be the world’s fifth largest food and beverage company with a market value of over $80 billion. It makes total sense, though; Kraft controls over 80% of packaged mac n’ cheese sales while also producing various cheeses, meats and salad dressings. Heinz controls 60% of bottled ketchup sales and produces various sauces and frozen foods.
Photo by Armin Nayak
So you’re probably thinking, “Cool, we all love mac & cheese, but what does this have to do with me?” Surprise, this dynamic-duo is now targeting us. Yep, they’ve declared us the guinea pigs of their new products.
As Millennials, we are beginning to make our way into the big bad world. This means we’ll begin to make our own food purchases with our own money (again, bummer). But don’t worry. Kraft is on top of it by revamping their products into foods they know we’ll like.
Photo by Armin Nayak
As USA Today kindly pointed out, we college kids are not exactly stable in the area of finances. On a college budget (and the potentially crappy pay we can expect from our first job), we tend to drift towards the knock-off brands to save a couple bucks. This is an obvious negative for a huge corporation such as Kraft.
We also differ from other generations in that health is very important to us. We don’t want to work our butts off at the gym just to gain it all back with our next meal. As a result, Heinz and Kraft are working on ways to make their current products more appealing to our generation, one example being Velveeta (good luck).
Photo by Armin Nayak
Fortunately, Kraft is aware of these barriers and is taking the necessary measures to conquer them. In the future, we can expect to see healthier, cheaper options on the shelves from this mega-company. Yummy, cheaper food? Count me in!