If you have ever paid $10 for a jar of mayonnaise and felt completely fine about it, there is a good chance that jar had a Primal Kitchen label on it. The brand built its entire identity on one bold idea — that the condiments and sauces people eat every day could be made with cleaner, healthier ingredients without sacrificing taste. From a single jar of avocado oil mayo launched in 2015, Primal Kitchen grew into a household name in the natural food world and was eventually acquired by one of the biggest food companies on the planet. So who owns Primal Kitchen today? The answer is Kraft Heinz — but the story of how it got there is one of the most inspiring entrepreneurial journeys in American food history.
What Is Primal Kitchen?
Primal Kitchen is an American food brand that specializes in ingredients, condiments, and sauces. Their specialty is organic, more nutritious versions of specific condiments and ingredients. It was founded by Morgan Buehler and Mark Sisson in 2015 and is headquartered in Oxnard, California.
The product line has grown well beyond the original mayo. Today, Primal Kitchen makes avocado oil-based mayonnaise, salad dressings, ketchup, BBQ sauce, steak sauce, cooking oils, collagen peptides, and more — all built around a core commitment to clean ingredients with no dairy, gluten, grain, refined sugar, or soy.
Primal Kitchen is the #1 condiment in natural grocery, the #1 salad dressing brand in natural grocery, and holds the #1 product position in six key condiment categories in natural grocery: mayo, salad dressing, BBQ sauce, steak sauce, ketchup, and avocado oil.
Who Owns Primal Kitchen Right Now in 2026?
The current owner of Primal Kitchen is The Kraft Heinz Company — one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world, publicly traded on NASDAQ under the ticker symbol KHC.
The Kraft Heinz Company (NASDAQ: KHC) completed the acquisition of Primal Nutrition, LLC, makers of Primal Kitchen branded products, in January 2019 for approximately $200 million.
Primal Kitchen operates as a brand within Kraft Heinz’s portfolio, under a platform called Springboard — Kraft Heinz’s dynamic platform created to partner with founders and brands that will disrupt the food industry. Primal Kitchen leverages Kraft Heinz’s assets and infrastructure while still operating as an autonomous company.
Who Owns Primal Kitchen — Ownership Table
| Party | Role | Ownership / Stake | Key Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Kraft Heinz Company (NASDAQ: KHC) | Parent Company & Owner | 100% of Primal Kitchen brand | Acquired for ~$200 million in January 2019 |
| Mark Sisson | Co-Founder | Sold stake in 2019; advisory role | Founded Primal Kitchen in 2015; NY Times bestselling author |
| Morgan Buehler Zanotti | Co-Founder & Former President | Sold stake in 2019; served as president until 2024 | Co-built the brand from zero to $50M in net sales |
| Springboard (Kraft Heinz Unit) | Operating Platform | Manages Primal Kitchen within KHC | Created to grow disruptive food brands inside Kraft Heinz |
| Vanguard Group | Largest KHC Shareholder | ~13% of Kraft Heinz (KHC) | Passive index fund giant; largest institutional holder of KHC |
| 3G Capital | Strategic KHC Shareholder | Significant KHC stake | Brazilian investment firm; co-created Kraft Heinz in 2015 |
| Berkshire Hathaway (Warren Buffett) | Major KHC Shareholder | Significant KHC stake | Holds large position in Kraft Heinz alongside 3G Capital |
The Origin Story: A Blog, A Jar of Mayo, and $200 Million
The Primal Kitchen story is about as pure an entrepreneurial story as you will find anywhere in the American food industry.
Mark Sisson, a New York Times bestselling author, media personality, and former elite endurance athlete — with a 5th place finish at the USA Marathon Championship and a 4th place finish at the IRONMAN World Championship — founded the Primal Kitchen brand in 2015.
But the real story starts years earlier. Sisson had spent more than a decade writing about nutrition, fitness, and the paleo lifestyle through his blog MarksDailyApple.com. He had built a loyal audience of millions of health-conscious readers who trusted his recommendations on food and wellness. When he looked around the grocery store for condiments that matched the clean-eating principles he was writing about every day, he could not find them.
Primal Kitchen’s first product was mayo made from avocados — without any of the processed and artificial ingredients, added sugars, or soybean and canola oils often found in most mass-market mayonnaise brands at that time.
Mark Sisson and Morgan Zanotti hand-packed Primal Kitchen’s initial run of mayonnaise jars in 2015. When their initial run of 12,000 units sold out in only a week, Sisson and Zanotti knew they had found an untapped market.
The funding story is equally remarkable. Rather than seeking investors, Sisson opted to take out a business loan, starting a line of credit that eventually grew to $9 million. Sisson was the guarantor on that loan, making him personally responsible if the company folded. “That was a difficult thing to sleep on every night for a couple of years,” Sisson says. “That was always hanging over my head — this huge line of credit.”
By the time they sold to Kraft Heinz, the co-founders owned 95% of the business, with just 5% owned by family and friends who invested in the company before the acquisition. “We didn’t raise money from other people, so we weren’t beholden to investors,” Sisson says.
How Kraft Heinz Came to Own Primal Kitchen
By 2018, Primal Kitchen had become impossible to ignore. The brand had grown from a single product into a full condiment and pantry staple line — and it was generating approximately $50 million in net sales annually in just its third year of existence.
The Kraft Heinz Company announced in November 2018 that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Primal Nutrition, LLC, the makers of Primal Kitchen branded products, for approximately $200 million. The acquisition was completed in January 2019.
Mark Sisson, co-founder of Primal Kitchen, said at the time: “While our growth to date has exceeded all industry standards and expectations, our partnership with an industry leader like Kraft Heinz now offers an unrivaled opportunity to reach millions more of the consumers who have been seeking products like ours for years.”
The deal was structured to give Primal Kitchen independence within the Kraft Heinz system. Primal Kitchen’s headquarters remained in Oxnard, California, and the entire team stayed on. Mark Sisson and Morgan Zanotti continue to serve the brand in advisory roles.
What Is the Springboard Platform?
When Kraft Heinz acquired Primal Kitchen, it did not absorb it into its core corporate structure the way most large companies absorb acquisitions. Instead, it placed the brand inside a unit called Springboard.
Springboard is Kraft Heinz’s dynamic platform created to partner with founders and brands that will disrupt the food industry. The idea behind Springboard was to build an incubator program to help emerging brands develop — while at the same time getting learnings that could be reapplied across the broader Kraft Heinz portfolio. Primal Kitchen was the first brand to be acquired and placed under the Springboard umbrella.
This structure matters for understanding Primal Kitchen’s ownership. While Kraft Heinz owns 100% of the brand, Primal Kitchen operates with a level of day-to-day independence that most wholly owned subsidiaries do not get. Its leadership team runs the brand, its headquarters remain in California, and its product philosophy — clean ingredients, paleo-friendly, no refined sugars — has not been compromised by corporate ownership.
Who Founded Primal Kitchen — Mark Sisson and Morgan Buehler Zanotti
The two people who built Primal Kitchen from the ground up deserve special attention because their story has become a genuine case study in modern food entrepreneurship.
Morgan Buehler Zanotti is co-founder and prior president of Primal Kitchen. She started her career in marketing for KeVita and managed brands within PepsiCo’s Growth Ventures portfolio for a boutique advertising agency. With her innovative mindset, Primal Kitchen launched the first avocado oil mayonnaise and salad dressings and other industry-leading pantry staples. She served as Primal Kitchen’s president until 2024.
Together, Sisson and Zanotti built a brand that went from zero to $200 million in just three years — without venture capital, without outside investors, and without ever compromising the ingredient standards that made the brand worth buying in the first place.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Q1. Who owns Primal Kitchen in 2026?
Primal Kitchen is owned by The Kraft Heinz Company (NASDAQ: KHC), which acquired it for approximately $200 million in January 2019.
Q2. Who founded Primal Kitchen?
Primal Kitchen was co-founded by Mark Sisson and Morgan Buehler Zanotti in 2015, starting with a single avocado oil mayonnaise product.
Q3. When did Kraft Heinz buy Primal Kitchen?
Kraft Heinz announced the acquisition in November 2018 and completed it in January 2019 for approximately $200 million.
Q4. Is Primal Kitchen still independently operated?
Yes. Primal Kitchen operates autonomously under Kraft Heinz’s Springboard platform, keeping its headquarters in Oxnard, California with its own leadership team.
Q5. What was Primal Kitchen’s revenue when it was sold?
Primal Kitchen was generating approximately $50 million in net sales annually at the time of its acquisition by Kraft Heinz in 2019.
Q6. Does Mark Sisson still own part of Primal Kitchen?
No. Mark Sisson sold his stake when Kraft Heinz acquired the company in 2019 and now serves in an advisory role only.
Q7. What is Kraft Heinz’s Springboard platform?
Springboard is Kraft Heinz’s internal incubator platform designed to grow disruptive food brands. Primal Kitchen was its first acquisition and remains its flagship brand.
Q8. Where is Primal Kitchen headquartered?
Primal Kitchen is headquartered in Oxnard, California, where it has been based since its founding in 2015.
Primal Kitchen is owned by The Kraft Heinz Company (NASDAQ: KHC), which acquired the brand from its co-founders Mark Sisson and Morgan Buehler Zanotti in January 2019 for approximately $200 million. The brand operates as an autonomous business under Kraft Heinz’s Springboard platform, headquartered in Oxnard, California.
Mark Sisson launched Primal Kitchen in 2015 with a single product — a jar of avocado oil mayo — and grew it to $50 million in annual sales in just three years without a single outside investor. Today, the brand holds the #1 position in six key condiment categories in natural grocery and continues to expand its product line under Kraft Heinz’s global infrastructure and distribution muscle.