U.S. food giant Kraft Foods Inc (KFT) made a limited commitment to U.K. jobs Tuesday and apologized for the broken pledges it made during its takeover of British confectioner Cadbury during a severe grilling by U.K. lawmakers.

Kraft's executive vice-president for corporate and legal affairs Marc Firestone told a committee of parliamentarians that Kraft would not close any more of the U.K. factories it bought as part of its Cadbury acquisition last month for at least two years.

He also said there would be no more compulsory redundancies in Cadbury's U.K. manufacturing base and pledged to keep open a research center in Reading, Southern England. The research center employs more than 200 staff.

Firestone went on to admit that pledges to keep Cadbury's Somerdale plant in South West England open, only to subsequently close it, had damaged Kraft's reputation in the U.K..

"We fully understand that the statement created uncertainty," he said. "We are terribly sorry."

Firestone was speaking at an investigation by the U.K. parliament's Business, Innovation & Skills committee into Kraft's GBP11.9 billion takeover of Cadbury last month.

Firestone received a hostile reception from all members of the cross-party committee, after trade union representatives accused Kraft of lying to staff in order to secure a favorable reception for its takeover bid.

Firestone's apology was met with scorn by Unite's deputy general secretary Jack Dromey, who was also present at the meeting.

He said Firestone's comments marked the first time he'd heard anyone from Kraft utter the words "sorry" or "guarantee." Indeed, he said Tuesday marked the first time anyone from Unite had met a senior Kraft executive.

Kraft said throughout its four-month pursuit of Cadbury that it believed it could keep open Cadbury's Somerdale factory, thereby protecting 400 jobs which Cadbury's management had pledged to axe.

Kraft repeated the pledge on the day the deal was agreed, only to announce a week later on Feb. 9 that the closure of the plant would go ahead after all.

Dromey accused Kraft of using the Somerdale commitment as a cynical tool to ease the reception of the bid with workers and politicians.

"A proud workforce from a proud community had their hopes raised and their hopes dashed," he said.

Firestone said the pledges had been made in good faith. Kraft had planned to keep U.K. manufacturing at Somerdale and to use Cadbury's new plant in Poland to expand Kraft's own capacity.

It was only in late January that Kraft discovered Cadbury had spent tens of millions of pounds fitting the Polish factory to manufacture Cadbury's U.K. products. It therefore decided to proceed with the transfer of production and close the Somerdale plant.

The committee accused Kraft of making the pledges based on guess work, adding that anyone at Kraft making such an enormous mistake would have been fired.

One committee member asked what Kraft thought the new factory in Poland would be fitted with, if not Cadbury's machinery, adding the suggestion, "tennis courts?"

Unite's Dromey was more dismissive, saying "Parliament has exposed the truth ... Kraft lied."

Firestone acknowledged the incident had been damaging. "We have worked very hard to build a reputation for honesty," said Firestone. "You can build a reputation for a hundred years and lose it in a second."

Firestone was always going to face a hostile reception, given that the committee had requested the attendance of Kraft's chief executive Irene Rosenfeld. Instead, she sent Firestone, the company's executive for Corporate & Legal Affairs.

"We do have severe reservations that we have someone responsible for Kraft's image rather than its decision making," said Peter Luff, the Conservative M.P. and chairman of the committee.

Committee member Lindsey Doyle went further, accusing Rosenfeld of showing "a total disregard for the House of Commons."

-By Michael Carolan, Dow Jones Newswires; 44-20-7842-9278; michael.carolan@dowjones.com