• Business Week, Thursday, December 13, 2007 11:45 AM

Kraft CEO Irene Rosenfeld has been launching one product after another, and executives say its most-promising new product may be a sandwich kit for keyboard-bound workers. Deli Creations was pulled together in less than a year by a team of managers with expertise in manufacturing, marketing, and market research.

But Kraft is emblematic of what seems almost inevitable at big, old companies with familiar brands. Accustomed to being on top, they cling to the mass market, missing shifts in customer tastes. They become more conservative and often settle for safer bets, such as extending lines with new iterations of familiar merchandise.

Rosenfeld herself says she sensed a deepening stodginess when she returned to Kraft in mid-2006, after a two-year stint running Frito-Lay. Rosenfeld is no revolutionary, however. Instead of dramatic strokes, she is banking on generating a profusion of new products that will each add $50 million or more in annual sales. To that end, she says, she is "rewiring the organization for growth."

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