Kraft Heinz (KHC) Stock on December 7, 2025: Price Slump, Spin‑Off Story, Lawsuit Risk and Wall Street Forecasts

Updated: December 7, 2025

Where Kraft Heinz Stock Stands Today

Kraft Heinz Co (NASDAQ: KHC) is heading into the final weeks of 2025 trading near the bottom of its yearly range and under a heavy cloud of uncertainty.

Last close: $24.34 per share (Dec. 5, 2025) ^[1]
52‑week range: roughly $23.70 – $33.35, so the stock is trading about 27% below its high for the year. ^[2]
Year‑to‑date: down about 20–21% from ~$30.71 at the start of 2025. ^[3]

On paper, Kraft Heinz looks like a classic defensive consumer‑staples name: low beta (~0.1), a globally recognized brand portfolio and a dividend yield of about 6.6% at current prices. ^[4]

In practice, the stock is being tugged in several directions at once:

A major corporate breakup into two companies planned for 2026. ^[5]
A fresh, first‑of‑its‑kind lawsuit from San Francisco over ultra‑processed foods. ^[6]
Soft volumes, lower guidance and skeptical analysts, even as some valuation models scream “undervalued.” ^[7]

Here’s what investors need to know about Kraft Heinz stock as of December 7, 2025.

Latest Headlines Since Early December 2025

Big Money Is Still Interested: Marshall Wace, Vanguard and Others

The most immediate news this weekend is institutional: on December 7, 2025, MarketBeat reported that hedge fund Marshall Wace LLP boosted its stake in Kraft Heinz by 1,645.9% in Q2, to about 1.88 million shares, worth roughly $48.6 million and representing about 0.16% of the company. ^[8]

The same filing‑driven report highlights that:

Vanguard owns over 102 million shares and added modestly to its position.
Geode and Invesco also increased stakes by double‑digit percentages.
Norges Bank initiated a new position worth around $276 million. ^[9]

Altogether, institutional investors own roughly 78% of Kraft Heinz stock, suggesting that — despite weak price action — professional money is still deeply involved in the name. ^[10]

AI & Quant Takes: Short‑Term Weakness, Tight Trading Range

A December 6 piece from Stock Traders Daily uses predictive AI to map “risk zones” for KHC and concludes that: ^[11]

Near‑term sentiment (1–5 days): “Weak,” with support around $24.32 and resistance near $24.69.
Medium‑term (5–20 days): “Neutral,” with resistance up around $25.34.
Long‑term (20+ days): still “Weak,” with a broader resistance band around $26.26.

The same analysis notes an “exceptional” risk‑reward setup for short‑term traders, underscoring that, for now, the market is treating Kraft Heinz as a range‑bound, low‑momentum stock rather than a growth story.

Fundamentals: Q3 2025 Results and a Lower 2025 Outlook

Third‑Quarter 2025: Earnings Beat, but the Trend Is Soft

On October 29, 2025, Kraft Heinz reported Q3 2025 results: ^[12]

Net sales: $6.24 billion, down 2.3% year‑over‑year.
Organic net sales:down 2.5%, with price +1.0 percentage point but volume/mix –3.5 points, reflecting consumers buying less or trading down.
Adjusted operating income:down 16.9% year‑over‑year.
Adjusted EPS:$0.61, down 18.7% from $0.75 a year ago — but still a few cents above analyst consensus.

Despite weaker profit metrics, the company continues to throw off cash:

Year‑to‑date operating cash flow: about $3.1 billion, up 10.4%.
Year‑to‑date free cash flow: around $2.5 billion, up 23.3%.
Year‑to‑date capital returned to shareholders: $1.4 billion in dividends plus $435 million in buybacks, with $1.5 billion of repurchase authorization still available. ^[13]

So the business is under earnings pressure, but liquidity and cash generation remain solid.

2025 Guidance Has Been Cut

At the same time, management and Reuters both confirmed that Kraft Heinz has narrowed and lowered its full‑year 2025 outlook: ^[14]

Organic net sales: now expected to be down 3.0–3.5% vs. prior year (previous range: –1.5% to –3.5%).
Constant‑currency adjusted operating income: expected down 10–12% (prior: –5% to –10%).
Adjusted EPS:$2.50–$2.57, slightly trimming the previous $2.51–$2.67 range.

CEO Carlos Abrams‑Rivera has warned that “the operating environment remains challenging” and that pressures on the consumer are likely to persist beyond Q4. ^[15]

That cautious tone is one reason Wall Street is hesitant to get aggressive on the stock despite the high yield.

Strategic Shake‑Up: A Planned Breakup into Two Companies

The Split: “Global Taste Elevation Co.” and “North American Grocery Co.”

On September 2, 2025, Kraft Heinz announced that it will split into two separately listed businesses in a tax‑free spin‑off targeted for the second half of 2026: ^[16]

Global Taste Elevation Co. – focused on sauces, spreads and “taste elevation” brands like Heinz, Philadelphia, and Kraft Mac & Cheese, with about $15.4 billion in 2024 sales. ^[17]
North American Grocery Co. – a more traditional grocery portfolio centered on staples such as Oscar Mayer, Kraft Singles, and Lunchables, with roughly $10.4 billion in sales. ^[18]

Management argues that the breakup will:

Reduce corporate complexity.
Allow more focused capital allocation and brand investment.
Better align management incentives with each business’s growth profile.

Kraft Heinz expects the separation to cost up to $300 million, but believes much of that can be offset through efficiencies. ^[19]

Buffett’s Painful Verdict

The split is, in many ways, an admission that the 2015 Kraft–Heinz mega‑merger never delivered. In August 2025, Berkshire Hathaway took a $3.76 billion after‑tax write‑down on its 27.4% stake in Kraft Heinz, calling the investment an example of overpaying for a deal. ^[20]

In separate comments on the breakup, Warren Buffett said he was “disappointed” and that simply taking the company apart would not, by itself, fix underlying problems. ^[21]

For KHC shareholders, the spin‑off is the key medium‑term catalyst: if the two future companies can demonstrate better growth, margins and capital discipline, today’s depressed valuation might look cheap in hindsight. If not, the breakup could be seen as a cosmetic reshuffle.

New Legal Overhang: San Francisco’s Ultra‑Processed Foods Lawsuit

One of the most important new risks for Kraft Heinz in early December is regulatory and legal rather than purely financial.

On December 2, 2025, the City of San Francisco filed a landmark lawsuit against 10 major food manufacturers, including Kraft Heinz, Mondelez, Coca‑Cola, PepsiCo, General Mills, Nestlé USA and others. ^[22]

The suit alleges that:

These companies knowingly engineered and aggressively marketed “ultra‑processed foods” that contribute to obesity, diabetes, cancer and other chronic diseases.
Their marketing and product design are comparable to “Big Tobacco”‑style tactics, creating addictive consumption patterns.
The companies violated California’s Unfair Competition Law and public‑nuisance statutes via deceptive marketing.

San Francisco is seeking:

Civil penalties and restitution for health‑care costs.
Court orders restricting advertising (especially to children).
Mandated changes to marketing and labeling practices. ^[23]

Industry groups argue that the definition of “ultra‑processed foods” is scientifically vague and that products comply with FDA standards. Still, for Kraft Heinz, the case adds another layer of reputational and policy risk on top of existing concerns about consumer preferences shifting away from highly processed brands.

Dividends, Balance Sheet and Valuation Snapshot

A Very High Yield

Despite the price weakness, Kraft Heinz continues to return significant cash to shareholders:

Quarterly dividend: $0.40 per share.
Next payment: scheduled for December 26, 2025, to shareholders of record as of November 28, 2025. ^[24]
Annualized dividend: $1.60 per share.
Forward yield at $24.34: roughly 6.5–6.6%, among the top quartile of U.S. dividend payers. ^[25]

Because of large non‑cash impairment charges, GAAP earnings are negative, so the current payout ratio looks high on paper. But based on forward adjusted EPS estimates, MarketBeat expects a payout ratio of about 57% next year, which implies the dividend should be sustainable if management hits its numbers. ^[26]

Balance Sheet and Leverage

Key balance‑sheet indicators from recent data: ^[27]

Debt‑to‑equity: ~0.46.
Current ratio: ~1.13; quick ratio: ~0.73.
Management is targeting net leverage around 3.0x, and has reiterated its priority of keeping leverage in check even while funding the spin‑off and returning cash to shareholders.

These metrics are not pristine, but they are reasonable for a large, cash‑generative packaged‑food company.

How Cheap Is KHC on the Numbers?

On basic valuation metrics at ~$24–25:

P/B ratio: about 0.60, which suggests the market values Kraft Heinz at a discount to its book equity. ^[28]
Price‑to‑sales: about 1.18x, which is:
- Above the broader food industry average (~0.75–0.99x),
- But below peer‑group averages (~1.35–1.78x), and
- Below Simply Wall St’s estimated “fair” P/S multiple of 1.39x, implying modest undervaluation on sales. ^[29]

More aggressively, several discounted cash‑flow (DCF) models see significant upside:

Simply Wall St’s DCF puts intrinsic value near $68.79, implying a ~64% discount to fair value. ^[30]
An AInvest roundup of external models highlights fair‑value estimates ranging from about $37 to $81 per share, depending on growth and discount‑rate assumptions. ^[31]

These models are highly sensitive to assumptions, but they underpin the argument that Kraft Heinz might be fundamentally undervalued if cash flows remain resilient.

What Wall Street Is Saying: “Reduce” / Hold with Modest Upside

Consensus Ratings and Price Targets

Across major platforms, analysts are cautious:

MarketBeat: 21 analysts; 1 Strong Buy, 16 Hold, 4 Sell; overall “Reduce” rating with an average price target of $26.58. ^[32]
StockAnalysis.com: 17 analysts, average rating “Hold”, with a 12‑month target of $27.41 — about 12–13% upside from the latest price. ^[33]
Other aggregators (Public.com, moomoo, Dividend.com) cluster around $26–$27 per share as a fair value range, implying single‑digit to low double‑digit upside from here. ^[34]

On earnings, consensus expectations generally call for flat‑to‑low‑single‑digit EPS growth over the next year or two, not a dramatic turnaround.

Short Interest and Sentiment

Short interest data from MarketBeat show that: ^[35]

About 4.37% of the free float is sold short.
The days‑to‑cover ratio is around 2.6, a manageable level.
Short interest has fallen ~4.9% recently, suggesting slightly improving sentiment.

MarketBeat also tracks a news‑sentiment score of around 1.08 for Kraft Heinz over the past week (on a –2 to +2 scale), somewhat more positive than the average Consumer Staples name — even though the stock price has been sliding. ^[36]

Bulls vs. Bears: Is KHC a High‑Yield Bargain or a Value Trap?

The Bullish Case

Supporters of Kraft Heinz today tend to highlight:

High free cash flow: FCF has been running in the $3+ billion range, with forecasts that it could edge toward $4 billion by 2035 if modest growth is achieved. ^[37]
Rich brand portfolio: Heinz, Kraft, Oscar Mayer, Philadelphia, Lunchables and others give the company substantial shelf presence and pricing power in many categories. ^[38]
DCF and P/S valuations that show the stock trading at what some models call a 30–60% discount to intrinsic value. ^[39]
A 6.6% dividend yield that appears covered by forward EPS and free cash flow, assuming no major deterioration in results. ^[40]
The potential that the spin‑off unlocks hidden value, with each new company re‑rated closer to peers once management and strategy are more focused. ^[41]

Simply Wall St, for example, explicitly labels Kraft Heinz “undervalued” on both DCF and price‑to‑sales metrics, with a fair value estimate nearly three times the current price. ^[42]

AInvest’s December 6 analysis similarly concludes that the recent selloff could be a “strategic entry point for value investors” willing to tolerate execution risk. ^[43]

The Bearish Case

Skeptics, however, see a different story:

Volume erosion and weak growth: Q3 showed volumes falling in key North American categories even as prices rose, a pattern bearish observers view as consumers rejecting the brands or trading down to private labels. ^[44]
Impairments and write‑downs: The company has taken large non‑cash charges on underperforming assets, while Berkshire’s multi‑billion‑dollar write‑down of its stake highlighted how badly the original merger under‑delivered. ^[45]
Shifting consumer tastes: Analysts and commentators note growing aversion to ultra‑processed products and artificial dyes, precisely where many of Kraft Heinz’s legacy brands sit. ^[46]
Legal/regulatory risk: The San Francisco lawsuit could, in a worst‑case scenario, accelerate regulatory and labeling changes that hurt volumes or raise costs across the industry. ^[47]
Underperformance vs. the market: A fresh Motley Fool piece titled “Evaluating KHC Stock’s Actual Performance” points out that Kraft Heinz has consistently lagged the S&P 500 over 1‑, 3‑ and 5‑year periods even when dividends are included. ^[48]

Perhaps most bluntly, TV personality Jim Cramer recently told a caller that “the new consumer just isn’t buying Kraft Heinz,” calling some of its brands “bad brands” and suggesting investors may want to “let that one go.” ^[49]

Meanwhile, GuruFocus published a widely circulated piece framing Kraft Heinz as a “classic value trap disguised as a dividend play,” arguing that the generous yield may be compensation for structural problems rather than a genuine bargain. ^[50]

Key Things for Investors to Watch

Looking beyond today’s price, several catalysts are likely to drive Kraft Heinz stock in 2026:

Execution on the spin‑off
- Regulatory filings, detailed financials for the two new entities, and management’s capital‑allocation plans will be crucial. ^[51]
Consumer and volume trends
- Whether volume declines stabilize — particularly in North America — will signal if price hikes and brand investments are working or if market share is simply being ceded to private labels and fresher, less‑processed alternatives. ^[52]
Legal developments in the San Francisco case
- Motions, early rulings and any potential copy‑cat suits could reshape how the market prices litigation risk for Kraft Heinz and its peers. ^[53]
Dividend policy and capital returns
- Given the high yield, any hint of a dividend cut would likely be punished, while continued buybacks at depressed prices could be seen as a vote of confidence in intrinsic value. ^[54]
Macro backdrop
- Packaged‑food demand is sensitive to consumer wallets and interest rates. A softer economy or prolonged high rates can both pressure volumes and raise the equity risk premium applied to slow‑growth staples.

Bottom Line: A High‑Yield Stock at a Crossroads

As of December 7, 2025, Kraft Heinz stock represents a tug‑of‑war between valuation math and structural skepticism:

On one side: high free cash flow, a 6.6% dividend yield, a sub‑book‑value share price and multiple DCF models that suggest meaningful undervaluation. ^[55]
On the other: shrinking volumes, a downbeat 2025 outlook, brand‑relevance questions, a landmark lawsuit over ultra‑processed foods and a decade‑long track record of underperformance versus the broader market. ^[56]

For now, Wall Street’s official stance is essentially “Hold / Reduce” with modest expected upside, while more opinionated commentators are split between “deep‑value opportunity” and “yield‑driven value trap.” ^[57]

As always, this overview is informational only and not investment advice. Anyone considering KHC should weigh their own risk tolerance, time horizon and view on whether the company’s brands — and its soon‑to‑be two‑company structure — can adapt to a world that is rapidly rethinking processed food.