Jesse Newman

So, it did improve profits.

Okay.

Kraft Heinz starts to, you know, boast the highest operating profit margin among food companies.

However, 3G has a lot of critics.

And among them, Wall Street analysts, former employees, you know, watchers of the industry, who all say that, okay, you cut costs too.

But you lose all kinds of institutional knowledge.

You lose, you know, marketing capabilities.

You lose expertise in research and sales.

And, you know, a lot of people view it as they just really gut the organization and that they cut costs at the expense of future growth.

And around 2020, Paul Earl is on the hunt for his next project.

And he told me that he's sort of wandering grocery stores in Chicago, trying to figure out what to do next.

And he stops dead in the mac and cheese aisle.

He has his son, his young son, as a taste tester.

They taste a sort of better-for-you version, doesn't get great marks.

And then they taste Kraft mac and cheese.

And Paul Earl said, look, you know, it still tasted pretty good.

And most of all, it just brought back really fond memories.

There's a lot of nostalgia there.

But he thought to himself, this is no healthier than it was when I worked at Kraft decades ago.

And this light goes off for him, and he says, I can do this better.