Kraft Snack Food Spinoff Picks Suburbs Over Chicago
NORTHFIELD, Ill. (CBS) -- When Kraft spins off its snack food division, the new headquarters will be in the suburbs and not Chicago, according to a published report.
Real estate sources told Crain's Chicago Business that the Kraft Foods Group had toured several office buildings as possible sites for the new company, Mondelez International Inc. But ultimately, the company rejected them all.
Mondelez will instead locate its headquarters in Deerfield, but the company has not decided exactly where, Crain's reported.
Kraft Foods Group Inc., which will operate as a North American grocery company, will remain at its current headquarters at Willow and Waukegan roads in Northfield, Crain's reported.
Northfield-based Kraft is the second largest company, with annual revenues of $49 billion. Its brands include Oreo cookies, Trident gum, Maxwell House coffee, and Kraft cheeses.
The announcement of plans to split into two companies came last August.
Kraft has steadily built up its snacks business over the years, helped in part by the acquisitions of LU biscuit from Danone and Cadbury PLC. The food maker said in August that Mondelez would include the current Kraft Foods Europe and developing markets units and the North American snacks and confectionery businesses.
The non-snacks component of the business will include mostly powdered beverages and coffee.
The new name for the snack food company is a compound word intended to suggest a "delicious world." Kraft says "Monde-" derives from "mundus," the Latin word for "world," and describes "delez" as "a fanciful expression of 'delicious.'"
