Kraft Mac & Cheese is trying to maintain its dominance with flavor drops and new shapes

For Kraft Mac & Cheese’s newest release, the 87-year-old brand is taking a page from hip streetwear companies.

With Kraft Mac & Cheese’s latest product, the 87-year-old brand is taking a page from hip streetwear companies. The pantry staple is forgoing its usual strategy of a nationwide release at grocery stores for its newest offering. Instead, it’s emulating “drop” culture, often seen in the sneaker world, by releasing a limited number of boxes of its everything bagel flavor to capture buzz and (if it’s lucky) TikTok notoriety. Available Friday exclusively on Walmart’s website, Kraft is selling just 15,000 boxes of its limited-edition everything bagel flavor. That represents less than 2% of the number of boxes of its original version sold every day, according to the company. Kraft’s take on everything bagel seasoning has garlic and onion powder plus poppy seeds but doesn’t contain sesame seeds commonly found in other iterations. For Kraft, the unorthodox marketing approach is an attempt to drum up excitement for the pasta, which is still the top-selling boxed mac and cheese brand in the United States but has seen its dominance decline in recent years as new competitors entered the space. Lately, consumers are either splurging for pricier, health-focused brands (i.e. protein-packed Goodles and organic mainstay Annie’s Homegrown) or gravitating toward cheaper, private label brands that cost about half the price of a box of Kraft. That has put these middle-tier brands in a precarious position.