Kraft Heinz Brings in a Corporate Executioner as Its $46B Marriage Heads to the Guillotine

Probably just a coincidence that Kraft Heinz suddenly found religion in “experienced breakup guys” right as it prepares to smash itself into two publicly traded pieces…

Kraft Heinz (KHC -20% YTD) just tapped former Kellanova CEO Steve Cahillane as its new top dog… because when your company is planning a corporate divorce, you don’t hire a romantic… you hire a veteran divorce attorney.

Cahillane officially takes the CEO chair on January 1, which is either poetic symbolism or just very on-brand for a company that’s spent the last decade rethinking every decision it made in 2015.

For context: Cahillane already ran this exact playbook at Kellogg. In 2023, he helped split the sleepy cereal empire from its faster-growing snack business, taped a new name on it (Kellanova), and then watched Mars griddy in and buy the whole thing for $35.9 billion.

(Source: FoodBev)

Translation: this man doesn’t manage breakups… he monetizes them.

Kraft Heinz plans to split into two publicly traded companies by the second half of 2026, officially undoing large chunks of the infamous $46 billion Kraft-Heinz mega-merger that once looked brilliant… until consumers decided they didn’t want to be affiliated with processed cheese.

After the split:

Cahillane will run the sexy side of the family, dubbed Global Taste Elevation (strange name I know).

In other words, that company gets the growth brands: Heinz, Philadelphia, and Kraft Mac & Cheese (the holy trinity of moneymaking namebrands). 

The other company, North American Grocery, gets the slower staples like Oscar Mayer and Kraft Singles.

Outgoing CEO Carlos Abrams-Rivera was initially supposed to lead that grocery unit, but plans changed. He’s now sliding into an “advisor” role through early March. Translation: help us hand off the keys without flipping any desks.

The board will now hunt for a new CEO to babysit the cold cuts and individually wrapped cheese squares.

If this all feels familiar, that’s because Kraft Heinz is hitting “copy and paste” on the Kellogg script… hoping Wall Street rewards clarity, focus, and fewer Frankenstein conglomerates.

And frankly, investors love a clean story. For instance, growth brands get their own multiple while sluggish brands stop dragging everything down.

Kraft Heinz shares ticked slightly higher premarket on the news… which tells you expectations were already buried six feet deep.

The stock is down roughly 20% on the year, sales refuse to wake up, the merger’s so-called “synergy magic” aged like milk left on a loading dock… and now, just to really round things out, San Francisco just sued them over ultra-processed foods with some unmistakable RFK Jr. energy.

If history rhymes (as it often does), Global Taste Elevation could end up as a premium growth story… and North American Grocery becomes the reliable, dividend-paying comfort blanket for investors who still own a Crock-Pot.

Either way, Kraft Heinz has officially admitted what everyone else already knew:

Sometimes the best turnaround plan is admitting the marriage was a mistake… and hiring someone who knows exactly where to place the scissors.

At the time of publishing this article, Stocks.News doesn’t hold positions in companies mentioned in the article.