On Thursday, February 25, representatives from Planning and Development staff, the Champaign County Chamber of Commerce, and Champaign County Economic Development Corporation accompanied Councilmember Tom Bruno on a visit to the new Chicago corporate headquarters of KraftHeinz. The visit was designed to meet with company executives to better understand their recent merger and to express the City’s commitment to maintaining them as one of the largest employers in our community. Staff met with Derek Crawford, Director of U.S. Intergovernmental Affairs, along with Eric Offerman and Larry Kramer.
Highlights of the visit included:
- KraftHeinz enjoy a strong relationship with Parkland College and the University of Illinois to train and grow their workforce.
- The Champaign plant ranks as one of the company’s largest facilities.
- The company is currently in the middle of a 12-24 month long evaluation of their operations and facilities. Cost savings and efficiencies are a major goal of this evaluation.
- Reinforcement that the 2014 expansion of their facilities has maintained the plant’s competitiveness during the merger and creates opportunities to grow in the future.
- Regular communications are important and they encouraged return visits from the community on at least an annual basis.
