The Kraft Heinz Co., the world’s fifth-largest food and beverage company, recently opened a new digital hub as part of its Evolv Group, which is tasked to create digitally powered business models and launch other entrepreneurial ideas that will promote company growth.
Kraft Heinz has established tech and entrepreneurial teams in Chicago and San Francisco. Kraft Heinz also purchased AI Food Tech company wellio, which provides meal planning guides to customers.
“In wellio, we found extraordinary talent that could fuel our digital ambitions and an AI platform that can help us create food-related solutions for our consumers and help us partner with our customers in unique ways,” Nina Barton, Kraft Heinz’s president of Global Digital Online Growth, said.
The tech team in San Francisco will be comprised of product managers, data scientists, designers, software engineers, and members of the Kraft Heinz eCommerce team.
The digital hub is in addition to Kraft Heinz’s $100 million venture fund, Evolv Ventures, which also was established this month, Barton said.
The establishment of the hub comes as Kraft Heinz’s shares dropped 9.9 percent last week, the largest drop since July 2015.
Third-quarter profits fell because of investments and cutting product prices 2 percent.