A little bit of background information..

To all of my fabulous readers,

My friends call me Classy Corporate . The company that I have decided to blog about this semester is Kraft Foods. I am particularly interested in Kraft because of their ability to uphold their company name amongst all of their individual brands.


History
Kraft Foods was started by a man named James L. Kraft. In 1903, Kraft started selling cheese from a horse drawn carriage in Chicago, Illinois. Soon after, Kraft's brothers joined the business endeavor and J.L. Kraft and Bros. Company was established. Over the century, Kraft acquired various brands, was bought over, merged, and had its name changed. Today, the company is known as Kraft Foods.

About the Company
Kraft is the largest food and beverage manufacturer headquartered in the United States, and ranks second internationally. Kraft owns over 50 brands, and more than 40 of them are at least 100 years old. Kraft currently employs over 90,000 employees at 168 manufacturing and processing facilities worldwide.

Kraft's Mission
As stated in Kraft's mission statement, Kraft's vision is to help people around the world eat and live better. Kraft has created a few principles that describe the type of culture that Kraft wants to achieve. These principles include putting customers first, play to win, and to work simply, act quickly. Kraft has created six values that they strive their company to live by.

Kraft's Six Values:

• Innovation: Satisfying real-life needs with unique ideas.
• Quality: Fulfilling a promise to deliver the best.
• Safety: Ensuring high standards in everything Kraft makes.
  
• Respect: Caring for people, communities, and the environment.
• Integrity: Doing the right thing.
• Openness: Listening to the ideas of others and encouraging an open discussion.

Kraft's Reputation
As far as issues go, Kraft has a clean slate in my mind. I have never heard any issues or problems with Kraft in the media, so I decided to do a little research on the internet. The only issue that stood out regarding the company's reputation was when Kraft Foods laid off over 400 employees at the end of 2008 to increase the company's cost efficiency.

Kraft teams up with charity!

One of the things that I believe boosted Kraft's company's reputation was their decision to donate to a hunger relief charity. In November of 2008, Kraft announced their decision to donate $4.5 million to Chicago's Feeding America Charity within the next three years. One of Kraft's marketing executives said that Kraft feels it's their responsibility to provide families with nutritious meals. I think this will have a very positive effect on Kraft's reputation. It shows that while Kraft is one of the nation's leading food and beverage manufacturers, they are very compassionate and charitable with their resources.

Opportunity or Threat?

I just read an article about Kraft's proposal to buy the confectionery company Cadbury Plc. The proposal has not been accepted, but I think this has the potential create challenges for Kraft's public relations practitioners. This could create panic in stakeholders, employees, and consumers in thinking Kraft may lose its focus on it's own company in the midst of taking over Cadbury.

What else Kraft can do..
As a learning public relations practitioner, I believe Kraft has many opportunities that could help improve the company's reputation. Kraft can team up with other nonprofit organizations that deal with hunger and offer nutrition assistance programs.