Kellogg's building
Kellogg is focused on eliminating work that doesn't drive high returns.

BATTLE CREEK, MICH. — Kellogg Co. on Jan. 18 announced plans to eliminate 250 jobs from its North American business as part of Project K, a four-year global initiative designed to fuel growth through greater efficiency and effectiveness.

“The changes focused on eliminating work that doesn’t drive the highest returns; driving speed and agility across the organization by removing duplication of work between global, regional and business unit teams in North America; and creating a more focused, efficient organization by increasing spans of control and decreasing organizational layers,” Kellogg said.

Kellogg debuted Project K in late 2013. The company describes Project K as “a significantly-sized project, which is expected to generate between $425 million and $475 million of annual cost-savings by 2018.” According to the company, the savings from Project K, in addition to those generated by zero-based budgeting efforts, are expected to provide the opportunity to make investments in the business while improving margins.

Kellogg said the majority of the affected employees work at its headquarters in Battle Creek, and changes are taking place across most functions in the organization.

“As you would expect from Kellogg, we’ll help our impacted people through these transitions, including offering severance benefits and outplacement services,” the company said.