Whether you watched the Big Football Game on Sunday or not, by now you’ve been exposed to one of the abominations it introduced. As part of a recent TV spot, corporate homunculus Mr. Peanut, anthropomorphic avatar of Planter’s, was “killed”. In a follow up commercial during The Game he was miraculously resurrected as “Baby Nut”. A brand mascot nobody loved, living out a narrative nobody asked for, in an multi-million dollar effort to sell people over-salted nuts.
While I’d love laying the blame at the hooves of you insatiable hogs and your slovenly worship of Baby Yoda, but I’m afraid the ultimate responsibility rests with Planter’s. Or, more precisely, it’s owners. Without their funding, guidance and assent the horrible little nut bastard would not exist.
Which brings us to our eponymous question. Who owns it? Who owns Planters?
First of all, Planters is not an independent entity. Planters is one of at least 25 brands wholly owned by corporate food behemoth Kraft Heinz. That doesn’t get us much closer finding someone to prosecute for the vile Baby Peanut, though. While locking up a handful of marketing managers might be appealing, it isn’t justice.
No, to truly hold the guilty to account, we’re going to have to dig further. Who owns Kraft Heinz?
Kraft Heinz is a publicly traded company, and taking a look at the shareholders, we start to get a picture of the actual villains. The largest shareholders are, unsurprisingly, institutional investors. Specifically:
Berkshire Hathaway – 26.67%
The Vanguard Group, Inc – 4.23%
BlackRock Fund Advisors – 2.22%
Followed by dozens of other management and mutual funds along with the usual Wall Street suspects. In fact, only ~20% of Kraft Heinz stock is held directly by individuals, none of whom own a significant number of shares. Even amongst institutional investors no single entity owns more than 5% except for Berkshire Hathaway. Meaning the real power lies, primarily, with Berkshire’s largest shareholder, Warren Buffet.
If ownership alone isn’t enough to place the blame for the Baby Nut with the famous Billionaire, let me direct your attention to one last piece of extraordinarily incriminating evidence:
Berkshire Hathaway produced these tophat wearing, cane wielding, versions of its top two executives. The one on the left is none other than Warren Buffet himself.
Our more naive readers might be asking what this proves, but one need only remember the birds and the beans to figure out the connection between Buffet and the infant legume.
Baby Nut is, well, a baby. It takes two to tango, and we all know the anthropomorphic fruit punch pitcher from the commercial is sterile, but here we see something truly damning. An indisputable family resemblance between the shareholding Patriarch, the deceased mascot, and the freshly birthed marketing ploy.
Thus we reach the shocking conclusion of our investigation into the heinous crime that is Baby Nut. Warren Buffet (more or less) owns Planters, and he (allegedly) fucked the talking peanut.
Now we all have to suffer the consequences. Thanks a lot, Warren.
Jean Krill is is the co-editor and co-founder of Zero Balance. His writing navigates the many disparate visions of a radically better future.