When Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway bought Heinz last June, they made Bernardo Hees CEO; previously, Hees had served as CEO of Burger King. McDonald's is apparently not happy about this: they've announced that they're dumping Heinz products in their stores. I wonder if they think Hees will feed competitive intelligence back to BK about McD's operations? Presumably he still has a massive chuck of BK stock, and you could probably derive a lot of inside dope about McDonald's by having precise insight into the supply chain for a critical element of its business.
Or maybe they're just vindictive corporate barons who take the rah-rah team-sports game of company loyalty way too seriously.
"As a result of recent management changes at Heinz, we have decided to transition our business to other suppliers over time," McDonald's said in a statement.
"We have spoken to Heinz and plan to work together to ensure a smooth and orderly transition," said McDonald's, which has more than 34,000 restaurants around the globe.
A spokesman for Heinz did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ketchup changeup: New Heinz CEO prompts McDonald's to switch [Lisa Baertlein/Reuters]
(via Super Punch)
(Image: I'm Lovin' It, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from ricote's photostream)
