Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT) is an American multinational confectionery, food and beverage conglomerate. It markets many brands in more than 170 countries. 12 of its brands annually earn more than $1 billion worldwide: Cadbury, Jacobs, Kraft, LU, Maxwell House, Milka, Nabisco, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia, Trident, Tang. Forty of its brands are at least a century old. The company is headquartered in Northfield, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. Its European headquarters is in Glattpark, Opfikon, Switzerland, near Zürich.

The history of Kraft goes back to 1903, with $65 in capital, a rented wagon and a horse name Paddy, James L. Kraft started selling cheese at Chicago’s Water Street.

His four brothers joined him in 1909, and they incorporated the fledging business as J. L. Kraft & Bros. Kraft born in Ontario, Canada, in 1874 had emigrated to the United States, where he engaged in a variety of pursuits. Kraft arrived in Chicago in 1903 with sixty dollars in his pocket. He bought a wagon and a horse to pull it, and fifty pounds of cheese, which he peddle on the streets.

The company quickly differentiated its cheeses though a marketing campaign touting the Kraft label. Kraft used innovative and aggressive advertising techniques to promote his line of 31 varieties of cheese, becoming of the first food companies to use color advertisements in national magazines.

In 1914, the Kraft brothers opened their first cheese making plant in Stockton, Illinois. By that time it had extended its market area throughout the upper Midwest and into major eastern cities. Until Kraft entered the business, cheese was produced in large wheels and had a tendency to spoil quickly when cut because most grocers and consumers had no access to refrigeration. Thus problem inspired Kraft in 1915 to produce a blended, pasteurized cheese that he marketed in metal containers as “process cheese.”

By 1917, Kraft’s earnings were $2 million. The company rapidly expanded abroad opening an office in London (1924) and Germany (1927). When the United States entered World War I, Kraft received a major contract to produce cheese in tins for the US army. The company changed its name to Kraft Cheese Company in the 1900s soon after merging with the Phenix Cheese Corporation, the maker of Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese (introduced in the United States in 1872).

Kraft went public in 1924; four years later, it merged with Philadelphia cream cheese maker Phoenix. In 1928 the company introduced Velveeta pasteurized processed cheese spread and Miracle Whip salad processing, adding Kraft caramels in 1933.

Kraft Foods is mainly known as a maker of cheese, biscuit and chilled processed meat. Coffee and beverages concentrates are only part of its business; however, Kraft is the leading company in hot drinks in the United States.

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