Kraft slashes jobs, seeks winning strategy

Kraft nutriments is trying to tweak existing yield lines to improve earnings in the wake of a reduction that will shutter 20 factories and chop 8,000 jobs from the payroll.

Kraft announced in late January that it will make the make an incision ins in hopes of saving $750 million a year. The closings are the company's biggest since it announced wounds of 19 factories and 5500 piece of works in 2004.

Kraft has been hit hard through rising commodity costs, spending $800 million more upon raw materials in 2005 than in 2004 Many of Kraft's major brands face stiff private-label competition, impeding the company's ability to pass along price increases.

Kraft will attempt to differentiate itself from private-label and other competitors by the agency of enhancing existing products through nutrition fortification, single-serve sizes and other strategies, CEO Roger Deromedi told a gathering of fare industry analysts in Scottsdale, Ariz., in late February.

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