Key takeaways:
Big Food can no longer rely on pricing, portfolio reshuffles or scale alone to drive growth. Consumers are becoming more selective, forcing companies to prove value across every product and price point. Growth is no longer being unlocked through strategy shifts alone but rebuilt through deeper changes to portfolios, innovation and positioning. Big Food isn’t short of activity right now but it’s not all forward momentum. In the space of a few quarters, companies have announced breakups, reversed them, sold off legacy assets, chased scale through acquisitions and, in some cases, quietly acknowledged they’ve lost ground. What once looked like disciplined portfolio management now feels more like an industry trying to steady itself in real time.
Few stories capture that better than Kraft Heinz. After months of planning to split into two businesses – one focused on grocery, the other on sauces and spreads – the company has paused the move altogether. The rethink follows missed expectations, continued market share pressure and a growing recognition that structural change alone won’t fix what’s happening underneath.
The shift comes under new CEO Steve Cahillane, who took over in January and has quickly moved to change direction. Rather than pushing ahead with a breakup, he’s refocusing on fixing the core business, signalling that the issues run deeper than organisational complexity.
“My number one priority is returning the business to profitable growth, which will require ensuring all resources are fully focused on the execution of our operating plan,” Cahillane said. “As a result, we believe it is prudent to pause work related to the separation.”
He’s also described many of the company’s challenges as “fixable and within our control”.
That’s a meaningful reversal. For years, ‘unlocking value’ was one of Big Food’s favourite phrases – a neat way of saying that a sprawling business would perform better once it had been carved up or simplified. Cahillane’s reset suggests something less comfortable: you can’t engineer your way out of weak brand momentum, thin innovation or consumer pushback on price.
Kraft Heinz is now committing around $600m to reinvest in its US business and lifting R&D spend by roughly 20% in 2026, with a renewed focus on product innovation, nutrition and value. It’s also acknowledged that pricing ran ahead of what consumers were willing to accept.
Is the ‘unlocking value’ playbook starting to fray? Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto If Kraft Heinz is one side of the story, Kellogg is the other.
The company split itself in two to unlock value – separating its faster-growing snacks arm from its slower cereal business. In theory, it made sense. In practice, both sides ended up being sold.
Kellanova, the snacks business, is being acquired by Mars in a deal worth around $36bn. WK Kellogg, focused on cereal, is being taken over by Ferrero. What was pitched as strategic clarity quickly became a staging post for consolidation.
It’s hard to ignore the message in that. For years, splitting companies was presented as a way to reveal hidden value. Now it increasingly looks like a way to prepare assets for sale. The value isn’t being unlocked so much as it’s being reassigned.
That shift is showing up across the sector. Portfolio reshaping hasn’t stopped, but it’s no longer being framed as a guaranteed path to growth. It’s a response to the fact that growth is harder to find in the first place.
At the same time, the industry’s other reliable lever – pricing – is losing its edge. For the past three years, price increases have carried the sector. Faced with inflation, companies pushed through successive rounds of hikes and, for a while, consumers absorbed them. Sales held up better than expected and margins stabilised.
But that strategy has limits, and those limits are now visible.
Kraft Heinz has acknowledged that it raised prices without delivering enough in return. PepsiCo has moved to rebalance its approach, cutting prices on some core US snack lines after sustained pushback. Mondelez has also pointed to the need to stabilise volumes after leaning heavily on pricing.
Campbell’s has faced a similar reckoning. The company recently cut its outlook after snack sales declined, with CEO Mick Beekhuizen pointing to slower-than-expected recovery and increased competition. More promotional activity and sharper pricing responses are now part of the playbook.
Manufacturers of chocolate goods are seeing a slightly different version of the same pressure. Cocoa costs remain elevated, pricing has risen and consumers are becoming more selective about when and how they indulge. Hershey has flagged softer demand, while Lindt has suggested that GLP-1 weight-loss drugs has shifted behaviour towards smaller, more premium purchases rather than reduce it outright.
Also read → Chocolate without trees? The science racing to reinvent cocoa That doesn’t point to a collapse in demand, but it does point to a more deliberate one.
This is where private label has gained real traction. It’s no longer just a cheaper alternative. In many categories, it’s a credible one, particularly when branded products struggle to justify the gap.
Pricing bought the industry time but it didn’t fix the underlying problem.
Growth is being rebuilt in a more complex, less predictable market
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