Monday, October 6, 2008 --- 3:10 p.m.

According to a Kraft employee:

Kraft Foods will have a workforce reduction in November. We are communicating this to employees today. In Madison, the reduction is taking place on the office side of our organization only, hourly plant employees are not affected by this.

We’ve worked to minimize the impact to employees and where possible we are managing this through attrition.

There are 1,600 employees here in Madison, 19 will be affected. Employees will receive our market-leading severance package, enhanced medical, and outplacement assistance. We will work with them through this transition.

We’re navigating an extremely challenging economic environment. Our input costs are at unprecedented levels and show no signs of diminishing. While Kraft is doing well – we are not where we need to be. We’ve implemented other cost saving measures, but at this point, we needed to look at positions as well.

In Madison, we continue to hire employees on the plant hourly side of our business as we focus on our expanded hot dog and cold cut lines.

Oscar Mayer is a key brand for Kraft. We are one of the company’s more than $1 billion brands. Over the past 5 years we’ve invested $120 million in the Madison plant. We are committed to the community and remain strong supporters of organizations such as the Untied Way and Second Harvest.