Northfield-based Kraft Foods plans to eliminate hundreds of jobs by the end of the year.

The 400 lay-offs will be spread out geographically. The cuts affect 1 percent of Kraft’s North American work force. Company spokeswoman Renee Zahery says the lay-offs will primarily hit management offices. She blames high food and energy costs facing the industry this year.

ZAHERY: We want to fund growth opportunities and manage our margins and things so there was a need for us to reduce overall costs. And we are doing that on a continuous basis and eliminating positions was something we did as a last resort.

Despite those higher costs, Kraft reported strong second quarter earnings over the summer. It beat Wall Street estimates and increased its profit forecast for the rest of 2008.