Kraft Heinz said Wednesday it has agreed to sell its North American coffee business, including Maxwell House, to private equity firm One Rock Capital Partners in a deal that values the unit at $650 million.
The sale covers Maxwell House along with smaller brands Gevalia, Nabob, Yuban, Tassimo, Ethical Bean and Sanka, plus coffee-roasting plants in Jacksonville, Florida, and Vancouver, British Columbia, according to Kraft Heinz's own announcement. Roughly 250 employees are expected to transfer with the business. Kraft Heinz will retain a 30% non-controlling stake in the unit and expects to net about $500 million after tax, which it plans to use to pay down debt. The deal is expected to close in mid-2027, pending regulatory approval.
Coffee has become a drag rather than an asset for Kraft Heinz: the business carries thinner margins than the rest of the portfolio and now contributes only about 3% of the company's net sales, according to reporting on the transaction. Kraft Heinz first explored selling Maxwell House as far back as 2019, when it brought in Credit Suisse to weigh options, but found no buyer willing to meet its price at the time.
The divestment is the latest move in chief executive Steve Cahillane's turnaround of the company, which has also included roughly $700 million in added marketing and innovation spending aimed at reviving growth in Kraft Heinz's core brands. It comes months after Kraft Heinz announced a separate, larger plan to split itself in two by the second half of 2026, spinning off a new entity — tentatively called North American Grocery Co. — that would house Maxwell House alongside Oscar Mayer, Kraft Singles and Lunchables before today's sale carved the coffee brands out of that plan entirely.
For One Rock, a mid-market private equity firm with a history of buying out-of-favor consumer brands, the deal adds a portfolio of century-old names — Maxwell House traces to the 1890s — that still carry retail shelf space even as younger consumers increasingly favor single-serve and specialty coffee. What One Rock does with the Jacksonville and Vancouver plants, and whether it keeps Kraft Heinz's 250 transferring employees in place, will be among the first signs of its plans for the business.
