Time for 3G to Get Krafty

Kraft Heinz Co., a food company managed by a private equity firm, increasingly looks like a food company managed by a private equity firm. At one time that may have been a compliment, but lately it's revealing Kraft Heinz's vulnerabilities.

The $95 billion packaged-food giant reported Wednesday that total revenue increased for the first time in the two years since 3G Capital and Warren Buffett merged Kraft Foods with H.J. Heinz and put 3G's partners in charge of the new company. But excluding positive currency effects (something that also aided rivals Kellogg Co. and Mondelez International Inc.), this revenue increase was a mere 0.3 percent. I'd call that flat. Furthermore, North America continued to be the sore spot, which is troubling given that it accounts for more than three-quarters of total revenue.