Raphael Stevens

Kraft Heinz is launching a customizable sauce dispenser with more than 200 possible combinations for restaurants.
The company hopes to appeal to consumers looking for more variety, spiciness and sweetness in their sauces and to learn what new condiments it should launch in grocery stores.
Kraft Heinz has been leaning into its away-from-home segment to drive sales as part of its broader turnaround strategy.

A rendering of the Heinz Remix dispenser
Source: Kraft Heinz

For more than 125 years, Heinz bottles have touted “57 varieties,” a number completely made up by its founder with little to no real-life application.
Now, Kraft Heinz wants to offer customers more than three times that number of condiment options through a new customizable sauce dispenser, created for food-service clients.

The machine, called the Heinz Remix, is the latest example of Kraft Heinz leaning into its away-from-home segment to grow sales. The company has expanded distribution in airports, launched a deluxe version of its mayonnaise for chefs and reformulated its Lunchables so they can be served in schools. In the first quarter, Kraft Heinz’s North American food service division reported sales growth of more than 25%.
The company will unveil the Remix at the National Restaurant Association Show, which kicks off Saturday in Chicago. It plans to pilot the dispenser in restaurants as soon as the end of this year.
“We are very, very clear that away-from-home and foodservice gives us an opportunity to test, to learn, to understand and to build trends much earlier than we have done historically,” said Peter Hall, Kraft Heinz’s head of its North American food service division.
Hall said the company is still working through the specific business model for the Heinz Remix. It’s also looking at how the dispenser could be used for drive-thru orders, he said. But the machine requires more time and effort than throwing a handful of ketchup packets in a takeout bag, which will likely pose a challenge for speed-focused drive-thru lanes.
To make a customized sauce, consumers will use the touchscreen to select a base of either ketchup, ranch, 57 Sauce or BBQ sauce; add in “enhancers” that include jalapeno, smoky chipotle, buffalo and mango; and set one of three intensity levels.

Alan Kleinerman, head of disruption at Kraft Heinz, told CNBC his favorite combination is ranch dressing, with a heavy dose of jalapeno and a lighter infusion of smoky chipotle. But a dark horse — mango ketchup — generated the most buzz around Kraft Heinz’s office recently, he said.
The company created the Heinz Remix in just six months, with helping hands from Microsoft, device engineers and internet-of-things developers.
“We’ve been on this journey to make innovation the number one growth driver across our business,” Kleinerman said. “To do that, we knew we needed to operate differently than we had in the past, to think bigger, to be more consumer-centric.”
The Oscar Mayer owner is in the middle of a turnaround after its former management’s focus on cost-cutting led to eroding sales in North America. Its troubles culminated in 2019 as it disclosed $16.6 billion in write-downs on iconic brands, such as Cool Whip and Kraft, and an SEC probe into its accounting.
In its latest quarter, Kraft Heinz reported North American sales grew by 6.2% as higher prices offset shrinking demand from inflation-weary shoppers. Shares of Kraft Heinz have fallen 3% this year, giving it a market value of $48.5 billion. Shares of the S&P 500 have risen 7% in the same time.

Taste-testing new products

While the Heinz Remix is new, its design feels familiar, thanks to its resemblance to the Coca-Cola Freestyle machine, which was launched nearly 15 years ago.
Today, Coke’s touchscreen drink dispensers can be found in more than 50,000 locations, including McDonald’s restaurants, AMC movie theaters and Target stores. Customers’ favorite custom orders from Freestyle machines have inspired the beverage giant to introduce new bottled drinks, such as Sprite Cherry and Coke with Cherry and Vanilla.
“They showed the power of iteration and innovating as they received feedback,” Kleinerman said of Coca-Cola.
But he added that consumers and food service operators were the primary inspiration for the Heinz Remix.
“I think it’s easy enough to draw the parallels, but this was an opportunity born through the original insights that came through and our desire to really change and build on the experience that consumers have today,” Kleinerman told CNBC.
Customers have been asking Kraft Heinz for condiments that are spicier or that mix sweet and savory, while restaurant operators told the company they wanted more variety, according to Kleinerman.
Like Coca-Cola, Kraft Heinz also plans to use the data from its sauce dispenser to decide what new products to release in grocery stores. The hope is that the Heinz Remix will drive new products that customers actually want, rather than those they say they want — but never buy.
In recent years, Heinz has already released a number of condiments inspired by combining its most-popular sauces, including “mayochup,” “kranch” and “buffaranch.” More

Elon Musk said he doesn’t care if his inflammatory tweets scare off potential Tesla buyers or Twitter advertisers.
“I’ll say what I want, and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it,” Musk said.
His defense came a day after Musk tweeted attacks on liberal billionaire George Soros, who is often the target of anti-Semitic invective.

Elon Musk told CNBC’s David Faber on Tuesday that he doesn’t care if his inflammatory tweets scare away potential Tesla buyers or Twitter advertisers.
“I’ll say what I want, and if the consequence of that is losing money, so be it,” said Musk, who owns Twitter.

Musk has for years tweeted controversial items, including conspiracy theories and comments his critics have called broadly discriminatory.
His defense came after Musk caught renewed criticism for a tweet in which he likened liberal billionaire and Democratic donor George Soros to X-Men villain Magneto, a Jewish Holocaust survivor.
“He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity,” Musk tweeted Monday.
Musk has previously criticized Soros, whose family office, Soros Fund Management, recently cut its stake in Tesla. Soros, who is also Jewish, is a favorite target of right wing pundits and politicians and often the subject of anti-Semitic attacks. Soros and his family escaped the Nazis during World War II.
Critics said Musk’s tweets about Soros fit a larger pattern of attacks on the 92-year-old investor and Democratic donor. “Musk’s likening Soros to Magneto isn’t casual; it’s a nod to harmful antisemitic tropes of Jewish global control,” tweeted Alex Goldenberg, an analyst at the Network Contagion Research Institute. Israel’s Foreign Ministry, likewise, said Musk’s tweets had “anti-Semitic overtones.”

Musk on Tuesday denied he’s an anti-Semite. “I’m a pro-Semite, if anything,” he said when Faber asked him about the criticism. Musk has also previously tweeted and removed memes using Hitler.
Faber on Tuesday also asked Musk why he tweeted a link to someone who said a mass shooting at a Texas mall earlier this month might be part of “a bad psyop,” or “psychological operation.”
Investigators have probed whether the shooter, whom police killed, had expressed white supremacist views since he wore a “RWDS” patch, a reference to the phrase “Right Wing Death Squad,” which is used by extremists. He also had Nazi tattoos, including a swastika.
“I thought this ascribing it to white supremacy was bulls—,” Musk said, adding that he thinks there’s no proof the shooter was a white supremacist. “We should not be ascribing things to white supremacy if they’re — if it’s false.”
Since Musk took over Twitter last fall, the social media network has experienced a sharp decline in advertising revenue as brands and companies assessed changes to the platform and some called out its outspoken new owner.
Last week, Musk hired former NBCUniversal advertising chief Linda Yaccarino to replace him as Twitter’s CEO, a move widely seen as a way to jumpstart Twitter’s ad business. She started Sunday.
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.
–CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report. More

The combined WWE-UFC will be called TKO Group Holdings.
The new sports entertainment company will trade publicly on the New York Stock Exchange.
UFC owner Endeavor and WWE aim to create a company valued at more than $20 billion.

World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. Chairman Vince McMahon appears in the ring during the WWE Monday Night Raw show at the Thomas & Mack Center August 24, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ethan Miller | Getty Images

World Wrestling Entertainment and Endeavor’s UFC announced last month they would merge later this year. Now we know the name of the combined company.
The new operation will be called TKO Group Holdings, a spokesperson for Endeavor confirmed Tuesday. As previously announced, it will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker TKO. The name is a reference to the professional fighting term “technical knockout.”

With the deal, Endeavor and WWE hope to create a sports entertainment giant valued at more than $20 billion.
Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel will also be the CEO of TKO Group, while Vince McMahon, WWE’s controlling shareholder and longtime boss, will serve as executive chairman of the new company. Endeavor will own a 51% stake, while WWE shareholders will get the remaining 49%.
Emanuel has said he intends to run “the same playbook” with WWE that Endeavor did with UFC, whose revenue surged 20% from 2021 to 2022.
“We have a track record of success with media rights,” Emanuel said last month. “WWE has similar scale to UFC. In the universe of assets at this scale, the opportunity is rare and finite.”
The deal is slated to close in the second half of the year. UFC and WWE will retain their respective names as part of TKO Group.

Despite WWE being scripted and UFC featuring authentic fights, the two organizations share much in common in terms of their combat sports content and cultures.
“This is going to be UFC 2.0,” Emanuel said in an interview that aired last month on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” More

Amazon Prime signed a multiyear deal with the Professional Pickleball Association to provide streaming coverage of four tournaments per year.
The coverage will kick off Thursday with a four-day tournament.
The PPA Tour’s 20-plus tournaments in 2023 can be seen across a variety of platforms.

Ben Johns leaps across the kitchen for a backhand shot during the PPA Carvana Arizona Grand Slam Pro Men’s Doubles Championship match at Legacy Sports USA on February 19, 2023 in Mesa, Arizona.
Bruce Yeung | Getty Images

Amazon Prime members can now add pickleball coverage to their list of membership benefits.
Amazon’s Prime Video streaming platform announced Tuesday it’s signed a multiyear deal with the Professional Pickleball Association for global streaming rights to four live PPA Tour events per year, including the 2023-2024 PPA Tour World Championship Series.

Amazon Prime’s coverage will kick off with a four-day tournament starting Thursday from the Atlanta Open in Peachtree Corners, Georgia.
“When something has an explosion in growth, naturally it catches our eye,” Charlie Neiman, head of sports partnerships at Amazon Prime Video, told CNBC.
Amazon said its coverage will include games with top-ranked players such as Ben Johns, Anna Leigh Walters and Anna Bright.
Connor Pardoe, CEO and cofounder of the Pro Pickleball Association, called the deal “monumental” for the burgeoning league.
“It’s important for the evolution of the pro game, the game as a whole, and a nice step forward for the professional players,” he added.

Prime’s deal with the PPA also deepens its commitment to the world of sports streaming rights, which range from Thursday Night Football to emerging sports leagues and sports documentaries.
Neiman says Amazon has had tremendous success investing in other emerging properties such as MMA’s One Championship or Overtime Elite Basketball. He thinks pickleball has significant growth potential as well, he said.
“We’re always looking at content and making sure our offerings on Prime Video reflect our customers’ interests,” he said.
For pickleball enthusiasts, seeing their sport on the small screen, along with the ability to stream games, is welcome news. But patchwork and evolving media strategy has also made it confusing where to watch.
The PPA Tour’s 20-plus tournaments in 2023 can be seen across a variety of platforms that also includes ABC, Fox, CBS, YouTube, the Tennis Channel and FanDuel. Earlier this month, the PPA Tour announced that ESPN will cover eight of the league’s tournaments.
“Where pickleball is today, it’s a sport that’s really hot,” said Pardoe. “It’s really exciting and nobody wants to miss out on it. But also, no one’s really ready to commit to the whole thing as well.”
Pardoe said it will take time to get a more concise and consistent media deal, but today the league is focused on getting its brand “anywhere and everywhere.”
Pickleball continues to see rapid growth, with an estimated 36 million people picking up a paddle between August 2021 and August 2022, according to a report by the Association of Pickleball Professionals. The sport grew more than 158% over the past three years, according to the 2023 Sports Fitness Industry Association Topline Participation Report. More

Two activist investment firms have proposed resolutions before Dollar General’s and Dollar Tree’s shareholders to improve worker safety and wages.
Dollar General is considered a “severe violator” of workplace safety by federal regulators, and employees of Dollar Tree say they aren’t paid a livable wage.
The companies’ boards have asked shareholders to vote “against” the proposals.

Dollar General and Dollar Tree stores
Getty Images

Two activist investment firms are calling on Dollar General and Dollar Tree shareholders to approve a pair of resolutions aiming to improve worker safety and wages, the firms said Tuesday. 
Dollar General Proposal 7, led by Domini Impact Investments, calls for an independent audit into worker safety and well-being. It will be voted on during the company’s annual shareholder meeting May 31. 

Dollar Tree Proposal 7, led by United Church Funds, calls for the creation of a wages and inequality report. It will go before shareholders during the retailer’s annual meeting June 13. 
The resolutions aim to address longstanding workplace safety and wage concerns that have plagued employees of the growing discount chains, which are increasing store counts faster than any other retailer. Collectively, they employ more than 377,000 employees nationwide, company filings show. 
Dollar General is currently facing more than $16 million in fines from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration for safety hazards, including blocked fire exits, blocked electrical outlets and dangerous levels of clutter. 
“It’s far too dangerous in the stores that we work in,” David Williams, a Dollar General stocker, said during a panel event Tuesday. “It’s a dire need and it makes no sense to always look behind your back and always try to do your job but at the same time always trying to make sure you’re safe as well.”
Federal regulators have repeatedly found similar violations at Dollar General stores across the country, prompting OSHA to label it a “severe violator” of workplace safety rules. It’s a designation considered “unprecedented” and “rare” for a company of its size and stature, said Debbie Berkowitz, a former chief of staff and senior policy advisor at OSHA. 

“[It’s] a program for the worst safety violators in the nation. It is totally rare for a large employer with many work sites to be in the severe violator program. Most companies in their program are small construction companies,” said Berkowitz, who is also a fellow at the Kalmanovitz Initiative at Georgetown University.
“OSHA rarely finds the same hazards or cites the same company so many times and for the same violation. Usually companies try to correct safety hazards that endanger workers,” she said.
Berkowitz pointed out that OSHA fines are notoriously low. Considering the $37.84 billion in sales Dollar General posted in fiscal 2022, the penalties are unlikely to have a major impact on its balance sheet. 
The retailer didn’t respond to a request for comment. It is currently in settlement negotiations with OSHA. Its board has called on shareholders to vote “against” Domini’s resolution, proxy filings show.

A shopper walks by a sign displaying $1.25 price, posted on the shelves of a Dollar Tree store in Alhambra, California, December 10, 2021. The store is known for its $1 items, but due to inflation raised prices to $1.25.
FREDERIC J. BROWN | AFP | Getty Images

Dollar General previously told CNBC it “regularly review[s] and refine[s] our safety programs, and reinforce[s] them through training, ongoing communication, recognition and accountability.”
“When we learn of situations where we have failed to live up to this commitment, we work to timely address the issue and ensure that the company’s expectations regarding safety are clearly communicated, understood and implemented,” a spokesperson said. 
Kenny, a Dollar Tree employee, said he’s only allowed to work 15 hours a week and brings in about $600 a month. The low wages and the inability to get full-time hours caused him to lose his housing and move in with his parents.
“You can’t expect most working adults, even teenagers, to make that little money, because it’s not going to help in the grand scheme of things,” said Kenny, who didn’t disclose his last name. 
Matthew Illian, the director of responsible investing at United Church Funds, said Dollar Tree doesn’t have a minimum-wage commitment, unlike some of its peers. 
Costco, Target, Best Buy, Amazon, IKEA and Starbucks all have a guaranteed wage of at least $15 an hour, while Walmart has committed to $14 an hour. However, dollar stores in general differ from many of those retailers because of their heavy footprint in rural communities, which tend to have lower costs of living.
Still, in many of those locales, the dollar store is one of the few retailers in town, so there is less competitive pressure to improve wages, safety and even quality of goods.
Illian argued investors benefit from income equality — and pointed to a study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute that found income inequality drags on GDP by 2% to 4% a year. 
“The economy overall would be doing better. That means more people with more money in their pockets, spending that money in more places,” said Illian. “So we’re asking for Dollar Tree to look at how their compensation practices are impacting the returns of a diversified investor.”
Dollar Tree declined to comment. Its board has called on shareholders to vote “against” United Church Fund’s resolution, according to proxy filings.
— Additional reporting by CNBC’s Melissa Repko More

After rewatching Donald Trump’s May 10 town hall, CNN CEO Chris Licht said he would have liked to do certain things differently from a production standpoint, sources said.
The lessons could be used by CNN or other networks that will have future Trump interviews.
Licht’s primary issue with the CNN telecast, sources said, was it focused too much on the spectacle of Trump while not homing in on the substance of what Trump said.

Chris Licht, Chairman and CEO, CNN Worldwide speaks onstage during the Warner Bros. Discovery Upfront 2022 show at The Theater at Madison Square Garden on May 18, 2022 in New York City.
Dimitrios Kambouris | Getty Images

Nearly a week after CNN’s May 10 town hall with Donald Trump, CEO Chris Licht has acknowledged internally there are some things he wished the network had done differently.
Licht continues to stand by the concept of the town hall, telling people both inside and outside CNN that history will look kindly on the network’s decision to interview Trump in front of cheering supporters in a live town hall format.

But there are several production elements that he would have liked done in a different way, according to people familiar with his thinking.
Licht said he wished he had introduced the in-person audience to TV watchers so that viewers could better identify who they were, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions were private.
The crowd was a main character in the event as many Trump supporters cheered his responses and jeered CNN host Kaitlan Collins when she challenged him. Licht would have liked to openly question the crowd before the town hall began so the TV audience could better understand who they were and why they were supporting Trump, said the people.
Licht and other CNN executives also pointed to direction elements CNN could have done differently, such as focusing the camera only on Collins when she tried to fight off Trump’s lies about election fraud in 2020, rather than using wide shots on both Trump and Collins. That way, CNN could draw the audience’s focus to the substance of the question rather than the spectacle of Trump. CNN could have also graphically shown each question while Trump spoke, emphasizing his answers didn’t always match the topic at hand.
Licht said he wished that after the town hall he’d had the network anchors focus on the news Trump made, such as his claim that he would settle Russia’s war with Ukraine within 24 hours or his refusal to weigh in on a federal ban on abortion. CNN could have gone live to a reporter in Ukraine, as an example, which would have reminded the audience of the network’s journalistic range.

The post-event panel, co-hosted by CNN anchors including Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper, looked like they had a case of deja vu after the town hall’s conclusion, clearly showing trauma from previous Trump interviews and speeches where he’d peddled election fraud lies and talked over questioners.
A CNN spokesman declined to comment.
Several high-profile CNN employees told CNBC they were embarrassed by the Trump town hall. One person said it was the network’s lowest point since a 2012 incident when the network initially misreported that the Supreme Court had struck down the Affordable Care Act.
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav chose Licht to run CNN last year in an attempt to reimagine the network as a down-the-middle, facts-only cable news network.
Other news networks will likely follow CNN’s lead in booking Trump interviews — especially if he continues to be the front-runner to win the Republican nomination for president in 2024. NBC and its news networks have been in contact with many of the U.S. presidential candidates, including Trump, about scheduling upcoming appearances, according to a person familiar with the matter.
NBC isn’t likely to do a Trump town hall, given how CNN’s went, said the person. An NBC spokesman declined to comment.
Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.
WATCH: Jury finds Donald Trump did sexually abuse E. Jean Carroll More

Home Depot missed revenue expectations and lowered its fiscal year sales forecast.
Chief Financial Officer Richard McPhail said customers are buying fewer big-ticket items, such as patio sets and grills, and taking on smaller home improvement projects.
In the fiscal first quarter, colder weather and falling lumber prices also hurt sales.

A customer enters a Home Depot store on August 16, 2022 in San Rafael, California.
Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Home Depot on Tuesday reported its biggest revenue miss in more than 20 years and lowered its forecast for this year, as consumers delay large projects and buy fewer big-ticket items like patio sets and grills.
The home improvement retailer said cold weather and falling lumber prices also hurt fiscal first-quarter sales. Its last quarterly miss of this magnitude was in November 2002.

The company’s shares closed about 2% lower Tuesday.
Home Depot said it now expects sales and comparable sales to decline between 2% and 5% for the fiscal year. It had previously predicted roughly flat sales for the period. Its operating margin rate is also expected to come in lower for the year, in a range of between 14% and 14.3% compared with a previously expected 14.5%, including the effect of a $1 billion investment in employee wages.
Chief Financial Officer Richard McPhail told CNBC that Home Depot anticipated 2023 would be a year of moderation, after Americans’ huge appetite for home improvement during the Covid pandemic. The retailer’s annual sales have grown by about $47 billion from three years ago. Yet he said the expected pullback has been compounded by rising mortgage rates and a shift toward spending on services.
“The state of the homeowner is that they’re very healthy,” he said. “They have healthy balance sheets. They have healthy incomes. But I do think — and our professional customers tell us they hear this from their customers — there is that shift, even if it’s temporary from larger projects into smaller ones.”
Here’s what the retailer reported for the three-month period that ended April 30, compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, based on a survey of analysts by Refinitiv:

Earnings per share: $3.82 vs. $3.80 expected
Revenue: $37.26 billion vs. $38.28 billion expected

Home Depot reported fiscal first-quarter net income of $3.87 billion, or $3.82 per share, down 8.5% from $4.23 billion, or $4.09 per share, a year earlier. Revenue fell 4.2% to $37.26 billion from $38.91 billion.
It marked the second quarter in a row that Home Depot missed Wall Street’s revenue expectations. Last quarter, the company fell short of analysts’ expectations for the first time since November 2019, before the pandemic.
Comparable sales for the first quarter fell 4.5%, and dropped 4.6% in the U.S. McPhail said lumber deflation accounted for more than 2 percentage points of that decrease.
Sales trends were better among do-it-yourself customers than among home professionals, but sales fell year-over-year for both groups, CEO Ted Decker told investors on an earnings call.
Spring is the holiday season of the home improvement industry. It marks a major quarter for sales to do-it-yourself customers and professionals who typically seize upon the warmer and milder weather by gardening and taking on other projects.
Yet Home Depot and its competitors now face a more unpredictable outlook. Rising interest rates threaten to dampen the appetite of prospective homebuyers and cool home values. Groceries and essentials now take a bigger bite out of households’ budgets. And with Covid largely in the rearview mirror, Americans now weigh spending on travel, dining out and other experiences when they debate a kitchen renovation or a new refrigerator.
Customer transactions dropped nearly 5% in the quarter compared with the year-ago period, but the average ticket of $91.92 was roughly flat.
Prices of lumber have dropped, but inflation is still raising the price of other items, Decker said on the investor call.
This spring, colder and wetter conditions in California and the western U.S. contributed to lower-than-expected quarterly results, he said.
Home Depot in the quarter sold fewer pricier discretionary items, such as new appliances, McPhail said. He said customers may be putting off those purchases or may have already made them during the pandemic. Demand has softened for flooring, kitchen and bath items, too, he added.
Even so, McPhail said Home Depot has some factors that work in its favor. Housing supply in the U.S. remains low and is aging, dynamics that will continue to prop up home improvement demand. Sales grew year over year in some categories, including building materials, hardware, plumbing and millwork, reflecting that people are still investing in their homes, he said.
“Once we’re through this period, we think the medium to long-term fundamentals of home improvement are strong,” he said.
Shares of Home Depot closed Monday at $288.54, down about 17% from their 52-week high of $347.25. So far this year, the company’s stock has fallen nearly 9%. That trails the approximately 8% gain of the S&P 500 index and the 1% rise of the retail-focused XRT.
— CNBC’s Robert Hum contributed to this report. More