Oprah Winfrey Will Sell Line Of Refrigerated Meals With Kraft Heinz
Oprah Winfrey might not dominate your TV like she used to, but she sure is trying hard to get into your kitchen with a new line of refrigerated meals.
The ready-to-eat dishes, dubbed Mealtime Stories, are a joint venture with Kraft Heinz. Despite the “Stories” name, there is currently no indication that these meals will read you a story while you eat them; color me disappointed.
Kraft Heinz will develop, manufacture, market and sell the new line in the U.S., in an effort to “create a new line of food that will make real, nutritious products more accessible to everyone,” the company says, adding that 10% of the profits from the meals will go to charities aimed at eradicating hunger.
Aside from lending her name to yet another product, what will Oprah’s involvement be with Mealtime Stories? That remains unclear, but the company says additional details about brand specifics and products will be announced later this year.
Although Oprah can currently be seen extolling her deep, unbounded love for bread in Weight Watchers commercials — a company she has a reported 10% stake in — Mealtime Stories is not connected to this effort.
However, the two companies do have a shared history, Bloomberg notes: Heinz owned Weight Watchers for several years before selling the business to a private investment company for $735 million in 1999. In 2015 Kraft bought Heinz, creating the third-largest food and beverage company in North America. Kraft Heinz still makes a line of frozen Weight Watchers meals and desserts under a licensing agreement.
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