New York —
Hellmann’s owner Unilever is spinning off its food business and merging it with spice maker McCormick to create a grocery staples behemoth.
The deal values the Uniliver brands at about $45 billion and McCormick at $21 billion.
The merger comes at a difficult time for food companies. Customers are fickle, and Kraft Heinz has struggled to persuade customers to buy packaged food that customers no longer view as healthy. Pepsi was forced to lower prices as consumers struggle with inflation. And Kellogg split up its company to get out of the snacking business.