Illinois-based Kraft foods announced yesterday it's being bought by fellow food giant Heinz. The two companies will have a near-equal partnership, and say they'll keep their separate headquarters for now.
Kraft employs over 3,000 Illinoisans between its suburban Northfield headquarters and its downstate Champaign processing plant, which is the largest in North America.
Champaign County Chamber of Commerce president Laura Weis says the plant has been a boon to the region's economy.
"Those individuals are being paid well above average so clearly it has an economic impact in terms of their payroll."
Though mergers can often mean immediate layoffs, University of Illinois College of law professor Amitai Aviram says employees shouldn't be too worried, since the two companies don't have all that much product overlap.
"However ... there might be more pressure on them to do more with less money."
Bob Brackett is director of the Illinois Institute of Technology's Institute for Food Safety and Health. He says the merger could be mutually beneficial. Brackett says Kraft's sales have been flat, due to what industry analysts call changing American taste.
"Sort of a desire to go back to something that is what they call clean labels--products that are more fresh-like, that have a perception of being more healthy and that have simpler labels with fewer ingredients."
Brackett says the prepackaged food industry is searching for ways to become more efficient and relevant, but he doesn't expect this merger to change that much in the long run.
