3. Kraft Heinz Co.

Kraft Heinz Co.

Headquarters: Pittsburgh, PA
2016 Sales: $26.5 billion
2015 Sales: $21.7

For 2017, Kraft Heinz Co. moved from No. 4 to No. 3 in the Top 50, improving revenue from $21.7 billion to $26.5 billion, largely thanks to implementation of company-wide efficiencies to eliminate redundancies revealed in the wake of the 2015 merger of H.J. Heinz Co. and Kraft Foods Group Inc. Kraft Heinz Ingredients (formerly Kraft Food Ingredients) is also seeing a new level of momentum in the wake of the merger.

While Kraft Heinz still has a very strong position in snack nuts, retail sales revenue for the brand has declined. For the 52 weeks ending August 13, 2017, Kraft Heinz saw dollar sales of its Planters snack nut brand drop 4.69 percent to $1.1 billion, sitting in the category’s No. 2 slot behind private label. Its Nut-rition line also dropped, down 8.87 percent to $59.9 million. Private label snack nuts also dropped during the reporting period, while the category overall was flat.

While overall Kraft Heinz revenue has increased, Wall Street has been wary, and the Kraft Heinz stock has underperformed over the past year or so. In December 2017, the company announced that it had awarded Planters advertising creative duties to a new agency, Chicago’s mcgarrybowen.

While recent financials have shown a slight dip in overall U.S. revenue for Kraft Heinz, its international business is on the upswing. Kraft Heinz and its controlling private equity firm 3G Capital made a failed attempt at acquiring Unilever for $143 billion during 2017. Analysts predict that attempts at other acquisitions will continue moving forward to help diversify the Kraft Heinz product portfolio.