Chicago and Pittsburgh, 2015.

Kraft Heinz is a company named after two older companies, and each of those was named after a person. Wikipedia says The Kraft Heinz Company was formed on 2 July 2015 through the merger of Kraft Foods Group and the H. J. Heinz Company, and that it is co-headquartered in Chicago and Pittsburgh. The two cities are the two family names. The Associated Press, in a report syndicated by FOX 5 New York on 2 September 2025, noted that Heinz was founded in 1869 in Pittsburgh; Wikipedia says the Kraft name goes back to James L. Kraft, who started a wholesale cheese business in Chicago in 1903. The live Heinz guide covers that side of the family in more detail.

The road to the merger began with a change of owner. The AP report says that in 2013 investor Warren Buffett teamed up with the Brazilian investment firm 3G Capital to buy H. J. Heinz, and Wikipedia says Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital took the company private that year. Two years later, Wikipedia says, a 3G Capital managing partner, Alex Behring, proposed a combination to Kraft’s chief executive, John Cahill. The boards of the two companies agreed to merge in March 2015, and the deal was completed in July.

Kraft Foods Group was itself a recent creation. Wikipedia says Kraft Foods Inc. spun off its North American grocery business as Kraft Foods Group on 1 October 2012, and that the rest of the business was renamed Mondelēz International. By then the Kraft name was already shared between two corporate owners when Heinz arrived. Wikipedia records that in October 2017, as Mondelēz’s licence to use the Kraft name in Europe expired, Mondelēz sold the bulk of its European sauce business to Kraft Heinz, which regained rights to the Kraft trademark there with some exceptions. The Mondelēz guide tells the snack side of that story.

A merged mark.

The new company did not commission a new symbol. It joined the old ones. The Drum reported on 3 August 2015 that the merger had produced a new logo and identity, and described how the Kraft and Heinz wordmarks had been taken out of their holding graphics and fused together, so that the curves of the Kraft “t” and the Heinz “H” line up. The two names, once each enclosed in its own badge, became a single line of lettering.

Food Dive, in a brief by Carolyn Heneghan published on 4 August 2015, added detail. It said both names kept the same font and colour they had used before, except that the Heinz name was now red rather than white on a red background, with the borders removed. The two words sit side by side, and the lower part of the Kraft “t” was tapered to make room for the sweep of the Heinz “H”. Food Dive also noted that it had not been determined whether the mark was a long-term logo or a placeholder, and that products would keep the branding of their own company.

As Food Dive described it, the corporate mark was a joining device rather than a new character. It reused lettering from the two founding brands and placed the pair on one line, while the products themselves kept their own branding. About a month after the deal was completed, Food Dive said, Kraft and Heinz were still fairly independent, each managing its own portfolio of foods.

Leadership changed several times in the years after 2015. Wikipedia says Miguel Patricio became chief executive in June 2019, that Carlos Abrams-Rivera took over on 1 January 2024, and that Steve Cahillane became chief executive on 1 January 2026, with John T. Cahill as chair of the board.

Parent names and many brands.

A group identity works differently from a product brand. The name on the stock ticker, the annual report and the head-office lobby is often one that shoppers rarely see on a shelf. Beneath it sit consumer names with their own colours, mascots and lettering, and the parent’s job is usually to stay out of their way. That is why so many corporate wordmarks are plain: a simple sans or a restrained serif, one or two colours, a symbol that reads at small sizes in a footer or on the back of a pack.

Where the parent name does speak, it speaks to a different audience. Investors, employees, suppliers and journalists meet it in annual reports, careers pages, press releases and the signage of headquarters buildings. Those surfaces become the group’s real brand canvas, and they deserve the same attention as any pack design. A merger, a demerger or a rename tends to arrive with a new mark and new typography, so the group logo can also read like a timeline of how the business has been put together and taken apart. Studying these quieter identities shows how a parent name carries authority without competing with the brands it owns.

A plan to part, then a pause.

A decade after the merger, the company proposed undoing it. The AP report of 2 September 2025 said Kraft Heinz would divide into two separate companies. One, provisionally called Global Taste Elevation Co., would include brands such as Heinz, Philadelphia cream cheese and Kraft Mac & Cheese. The other, provisionally called North American Grocery Co., would include brands such as Maxwell House, Oscar Mayer, Kraft Singles and Lunchables. The AP said the official names would be released later, and that the company had no plans to change its headquarters in Chicago and Pittsburgh.

Neither provisional name used a founder’s surname; each described an area of business, and the AP’s brand lists placed Kraft products in both. Supermarket News, in a story originally published by its sister title CSP Daily News and dated 17 February 2026, reported that Kraft Heinz was pausing the plan. Chief executive Steve Cahillane said in a statement that the company believed it was “prudent to pause work related to the separation,” so that resources could be focused on its operating plan. Wikipedia says the board paused the work on 11 February 2026, and that in its May 2026 quarterly report the company said the timing and completion of the proposal remained uncertain. As of that report, Kraft Heinz continued under the merged name and the merged mark of 2015.

For a design guide, Kraft Heinz shows how a group can make an identity out of inherited parts: two existing wordmarks, lifted from their frames and set on a single line, with a small adjustment to one letter so they can sit together. Compare it with the Mondelēz and Danone group identities. For this guide we use tomato red, lakefront blue and navy ink with a grotesque sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Kraft Heinz’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.