Warren Buffett quietly moves to reshuffle Kraft Heinz board

By: Josh K.

Billionaire Warren Buffett’s demands to revive packaged food giant Kraft Heinz have resulted in a quiet reshuffling of the board, The Post has learned.

Kraft Heinz Chairman and 3G Capital Co-Founder Alexandre Behring has recently moved from Greenwich, Conn., to Brazil in a move that gives more power to Kraft Heinz Vice Chair — and former Kraft CEO — John Cahill, two sources told The Post.

The move is expected to decrease Behring’s time managing the struggling business — and comes as Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway owns a 26.7% stake, has been pushing the company to escape sagging sales blamed in part on drastic cost-cutting measures made at the behest of 3G.

“Alex is a bit in the penalty box,” one of the sources said of Behring, who has privately said he wants to spend more time in Brazil for the sake of his family.

On Monday, the food company behind Velveeta and Oscar Mayer said it hired Miguel Patricio — a former Anheuser-Busch InBev marketing executive — as its new CEO, replacing Bernando Hees, who became chief in 2015.

“Berkshire’s people on the board pressed for [the] change,” one source said of Patricio. Behring “was supportive of Bernardo,” a Kraft Heinz analyst said, requesting confidentiality.

Buffett-backed board members include Tracy Britt Cool, who has a reputation for pushing big changes at Berkshire’s underperforming companies, including as chairwoman of Benjamin Moore.

Kraft Heinz declined to comment on Behring’s reduced profile except to say that the board was unanimous in naming Patricio as CEO.

“Miguel will lead the next phase of growth for Kraft Heinz amidst a rapidly changing … industry, effective July 1, 2019,” the company said in a statement.

3G Capital, a New York- and Rio de Janeiro-based private equity firm, orchestrated the 2013 buyout of H.J. Heinz and then merged it with Kraft Foods in 2015. It currently owns 22% of Kraft Heinz, which has seen its shares drop 43% over the last 12 months to close Wednesday at $32.76 a share.

In February, Buffett told CNBC that he paid too much for the packaged-food conglomerate, which he invested in alongside 3G. Buffett made the comments following the company’s $15.4 billion write-down of its Kraft and Oscar Mayer businesses. It’s also facing a probe of its accounting.

Cahill is expected to be a good de-facto chair for Kraft Heinz.

“He’s got an ability to get people to work well together,” a consumer industry source said, referring to his time running Pepsi Bottling Group. “It’s hard to imagine someone better than him at resolving conflicting points of view.”

3G Capital and Berkshire Hathaway did not respond to requests for comment.