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, Oreo, 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.
Kraft is an independent public company; it is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and became a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average on September 22, 2008, replacing the American International Group. In August 2011, the company announced plans to split into a North American grocery business and a faster-growing global snacks company. The name Mondelēz International Inc. has been approved.
The firm now known as Kraft Foods has its origin as National Dairy Products Corporation, formed on December 10, 1923, by Thomas H. McInnerney. The firm was initially set up to execute on a rollup strategy in the then fragmented United States ice cream industry. Through acquisitions it expanded into a full range of dairy products. By 1930, eight years after it was founded, it was the largest dairy company in the United States and the world, exceeding Borden.