NORTHFIELD – Kraft Foods Inc., the largest North
American food company, said it is eliminating about 600 salaried
positions as part of its 2004 plan targeting 6,000 job cuts by 2007.
NORTHFIELD – Kraft Foods Inc., the largest North American food company, said it is eliminating about 600 salaried positions as part of its 2004 plan targeting 6,000 job cuts by 2007.
The latest streamlining occurred mid-November at several locations mostly in North America, including Canadian operations and Kraft’s corporate base in suburban Chicago.
The cuts brought the total eliminated jobs under the 21-month-old restructuring to 5,200, leaving 800 positions yet to be identified.
About 250 of the jobs being eliminated are at Kraft’s North America commercial foods division, with Kraft’s Canadian operations being folded into that unit, spokeswoman Kris Charles said.
The commercial unit has five separate units – snacks, beverages, cheese and dairy products, convenient meals and grocery foods.
Effective in January, “Canadian business leaders will report directly to the Kraft North America Commercial sectors to better leverage the company’s scale and marketing programs in North America and reduce duplication of resources, while maintaining local consumer insights,” the big food processor said in a release.
Another 200 jobs will be cut from the company’s global supply chain division and the other 150 are global corporate jobs, said Charles, who declined to cite specific numbers by location.
The maker of Kraft cheese, Nabisco crackers, Oscar Mayer meats and Post cereals announced the restructuring in January 2004 on the heels of a top management shakeup that followed more than a year of disappointing sales and earnings.
Kraft has about 96,000 employees worldwide, including 56,000 in the United States and Canada, where founder James Lewis Kraft was born in 1875.
Kraft was born in Stevensville, Ont., and moved to Chicago where he began selling cheese from a horse-drawn wagon to grocery stores. He established his Canadian operations in Montreal in the 1920s and the Canadian subsidiary grew to employ 4,000 people, with operations across the country.
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