Jessica Mendoza

Kraft Heinz employees came to a similar conclusion, at least with Google's Chetty Mac flavor.

When it first hit store shelves in 2022, employees set up their own taste test.

Here's our colleague Jessie again.

But it was pretty close to Kraft's nostalgic flavor.

And the fact was that Goodall's was just one competitor in a growing number of brands in the mac and cheese market.

And that worried Kraft employees.

But Kraft Mac and Cheese was still selling a billion dollars worth of product a year, and company executives had more pressing things on their minds.

Other parts of the business were also struggling, from Oscar Mayer to Maxwell House.

According to Jesse, a lot of Kraft Heinz products just happen to be on the wrong side of consumer trends.

In the midst of all this, Kraft Mac and Cheese continued to lose market share.

Eventually, the company turned its attention to its blue boxes, and Kraft Heinz declared 2025 the year of mac and cheese.

So they really go hard on the flavors.

The company also dialed up the cheese.

It introduced a bigger box that said it can feed a family of five for $2.

And it updated its packaging to show that the product doesn't contain artificial flavors, preservatives or dyes.

But all that still hasn't been enough to turn things around, either for Kraft Heinz or its mac and cheese.

And in September, Kraft Heinz announced that it was unwinding its merger and splitting up into two companies.

And as for its mac and cheese brand?

One executive at Kraft Heinz told Jesse that the company now knows its brands better than it's ever known them.

And this year, the company plans to roll out a higher-protein mac and cheese that it said will be more affordable than competitors' versions.