- Kraft Heinz employees told Insider about the scant resources and high turnover.
- Cuts backed by private equity firm 3G Capital have forced employees to bring in their own coffee.
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The merger of Kraft and Heinz brought lots of changes to the food company. But one of the most immediate was to employees' food options at the company's Chicago headquarters.
Within a month of the merger closing in 2015, Kraft Heinz also removed fridges that held snacks for company employees. While it provided Keurig machines, the company did not supply the pods.
"You had to make the coffee yourself, and you had to bring in your own Keurig pods from home," one former employee told Insider.
That was only the beginning of the cuts at Kraft Heinz, the company behind Oscar Mayer hot dogs and Kool-Aid drink mixes.
In the six years since the merger, the food giant has left few stones unturned to save money, raiding budgets for new products, employee travel, and everything in between. One employee who recently left the company said that when she was in the office she was limited to spending $5 a year on pens, notepads, and other office supplies.
Nine current and former employees spoke with Insider. They described a company that has fallen behind many of its peers in the food industry. They also said the deep cuts have caused morale to plummet and turnover to soar. And though Kraft Heinz got a sales lift during the pandemic as many consumers ate more at home, many said they expect the effect to fade as life returns to normal.
