Free Republic

McDonald’s has lost its taste for Heinz ketchup. The fast-food giant said in a statement Friday that it is cutting ties with the condiment company after 40 years due to management changes there. A former Burger King CEO became head of Heinz in June after the company was bought by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital. 3G, a Brazilian investment firm, also controls Burger King. The impact of the change may be tasted more overseas. In the U.S., McDonald’s uses Heinz products only in Pittsburgh and Minneapolis restaurants. …

PITTSBURGH - H.J. Heinz Co, the world's largest ketchup maker, said on Tuesday it plans to eliminate 600 jobs across North America.

BOSTON (AP) — Teresa Heinz Kerry, the wife of U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and heir to a ketchup company fortune, was hospitalized in critical but stable condition Monday, a day after showing symptoms consistent with a seizure, a person in close contact with the family said.

Teresa Heinz Kerry was in critical but stable condition at a Boston hospital after being transferred there from a hospital in Nantucket, where she and husband Secretary of State John Kerry were vacationing. A family spokesman said that Heinz Kerry was transferred to Massachusetts General Hospital from Nantucket Cottage Hospital, where she was taken by ambulance earlier today.

Teresa Heinz Kerry, wife of U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry, was taken to a hospital on Nantucket this afternoon, according to a person close to the family, Boston.com reports.

The shocking minutes relating to President Putin’s meeting this past week with US Secretary of State John Kerry reveal the Russian leaders “extreme outrage” over the Obama regimes continued protection of global seed and plant bio-genetic giants Syngenta and Monsanto in the face of a growing “bee apocalypse” that the Kremlin warns “will most certainly” lead to world war. According to these minutes, released in the Kremlin today by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation (MNRE), Putin was so incensed over the Obama regimes refusal to discuss this grave matter that he refused for three...

Brazilian private-equity firm 3G Capital is sliding the chief executive of Burger King Worldwide Inc. (BKW), which it currently controls, into the same role at H.J. Heinz Co. (HNZ) once 3G and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRKA, BRKB) complete their $23 billion buyout of the ketchup maker. Bernardo Hees will replace Heinz CEO William Johnson, who has led the ketchup-maker for 15 years and turned it into more of a global food company by selling ketchup and other Heinz's products all across the world. 3G and Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway in February teamed up to buy Heinz for $72.50 a share...

You do know that. I love our Secretary, but Teresa Heinz Kerry is another woman of courage who has been just a dear friend and supporter to me for a very long time, and it is just a thrill to have you both in this role. Congratulations, and thank you.

Billionaire Warren Buffett loves Heinz ketchup with his hash browns so much that he is driving Heinz into junk status. Maybe he actually likes Hunts Ketchup better. His love of ketchup and hash browns is transforming H.J. Heinz Co. into the most-leveraged food maker in America. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and 3G Capital Inc.’s $2 billion acquisition of Heinz may double the company’s total debt to five times earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, according to Fitch Ratings, the highest of any comparable food company. The cost to protect Heinz’s debt from losses soared to a record after the...

<p>The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has frozen the assets of a Swiss trading account that allegedly made a series of "highly suspicious" trades reaping about $1.7 million ahead of the blockbuster sale of H.J. Heinz Co.</p> <p>The regulator's move came one day after Heinz said it was selling itself for $23 billion to Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Brazilian private-equity firm 3G Capital in one of the biggest food-industry acquisitions ever.</p>

Goldman Sachs Group Inc is cooperating with a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission probe into insider options trading in H.J. Heinz Co before the food company announced it was being acquired, Goldman said on Friday.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is dipping into the ketchup business as part of $23.3 billion deal to buy the Heinz ketchup company. H.J. Heinz Co. says it’s the largest deal ever in the food industry. The company, based in Pittsburgh, also makes Classico spaghetti sauces, Ore-Ida potatoes and Smart Ones frozen meals. Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and its partner on the deal—3G Capital, the investment firm that bought Burger King in 2010—say Heinz will remain headquartered in Pittsburgh. Heinz CEO William Johnson said in a statement that the company “will have an opportunity to drive further growth” as a private enterprise....

(Reuters) - Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and private equity firm 3G Capital will buy ketchup and baby food maker H.J. Heinz Co for $23.2 billion in cash, a deal that combines 3G's ambitions in the food industry with Buffett's hunt for growth. Including debt assumption, Heinz valued the transaction, which it called the largest in its industry's history, at $28 billion. Berkshire and 3G will pay $72.50 per share, a 19 percent premium to the stock's previous all-time high.

When it comes to those last globs of ketchup inevitably stuck to every bottle of Heinz, most people either violently shake the container in hopes of eking out another drop or two, or perform the "secret" trick: smacking the "57" logo on the bottle’s neck. But not MIT PhD candidate Dave Smith. He and a team of mechanical engineers and nano-technologists at the Varanasi Research Group have been held up in an MIT lab for the last two months addressing this common dining problem. The result? LiquiGlide, a "super slippery" coating made up of nontoxic materials that can be applied...

No Jobs for U.S. workers declares Bill Johnson, CEO at Heinz, on Wall Street Journal Report last Saturday Last Saturday, the CEO of Heinz, best known for ketchup production, told Maria Bartiromo that Heinz will not be hiring Americans this year. The reason he gave was the ‘uncertainty’ produced by the ‘inability’ of the government to decide on really important things such as the tax rate his business will pay. He announced at the same time on the same program that Heinz will be opening facilities and hiring in other countries, and concentrated on China where they make soy sauce.

SNIPPET: "Iranian parliament member Mahmoud Ahmadi Bigesh said Wednesday that Egypt has promised to issue entry permits for him and three of his fellow parliament members, who want to enter the Gaza Strip via the Rafah crossing."

<p>Devotees of baked beans will soon be able to save themselves valuable seconds – not to mention the agony of lacerating their fingers on jagged cans – as they prepare their favourite food.</p> <p>After 115 years, Heinz is to offer its baked beans in screw-top plastic jars for the first time. The 15cm-high resealable fridge pack, which holds 1kg of beans, will go on sale in September and will feature a see-through measure on its side showing how much is left inside.</p>

<p>Your fries may never taste the same again!</p> <p>For the first time in 40 years, Heinz ketchup is changing its famous recipe -- by lowering the salt content in an effort to appeal to more health-conscious consumers, the company said yesterday.</p>

<p>PORTLAND, Ore. --The ketchup packet has been around for more than 40 years, and complaints about it for nearly as long: too messy, too small, too hard to open. Now ketchup giant H.J. Heinz Co. is unveiling the first major packaging change to the to-go condiment.</p>

BOSTON -- Teresa Heinz, the wife of the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry, says she is being treated for breast cancer. Heinz, 71, said she found out in late September that she had cancer in her left breast after having her annual mammogram and doctors later discovered a lump on her right breast.