By Mike Boyer
The Cincinnati Enquirer

An 84-year-old Cincinnati tradition is ending with the announcement that Husman Snack Foods will close its Over-the-Rhine potato chip plant early next year.

The company, part of Rochester-based Birds Eye Foods Inc., is moving production to a sister plant in Berlin, Pa., and relocating warehousing and distribution to a newer operation in Northern Kentucky.

The move won't affect availability of Husman's products on area store shelves, but it will mean the elimination of 53 production and management jobs at the company's plant at 1621 Moore St., where the company has operated for more than 50 years.

The company will employ about 16 at the new warehouse in Boone County. About 50 independent drivers who deliver to 300 retailers in about an 80-mile radius of Cincinnati won't be affected.

"This is emotionally difficult for me," said David Ray, general manager of Husman and its sister plant, Snyder of Berlin, in Berlin, Pa.

The company is providing severance benefits and help in finding new jobs to eight management employees and will negotiate severance with Teamsters Local 114, which represents 45 production workers.

Ray, who was plant manager at Husman in the early 1990s, said many of the plant workers have 25 to 30 years or more with the company.

"This decision in no way reflects on the people at the plant," he said.

Rather, he said, it was a matter of economics.

Husman has annual sales of about $14 million and is profitable. But an investment of more than $2 million in the Over-The-Rhine plant would be required to bring it up to the company's requirements.

"It's not financially viable," Ray said.

The three-story Over-The-Rhine plant is old and requires a lot of additional product handling. Husman operates only one shift while the Snyder plant operates three shifts.

Additionally, the company is eliminating use of hydrogenated oils to fry its products and replacing with another type of oil. Ray said the plant's existing fryers are not compatible with the new oil and would have to be replaced.

The company dates from 1919 when paper bag salesman Harry Husman began making chips locally because area stores relied on out-of-town suppliers. The company was sold to the Frank Herschede Co. in 1958, which operated the business until it was sold to what is today Birds Eye in 1990.

Closing of the plant means that Grippo Foods Inc., in Groesbeck is the last local potato chip maker.

Email mboyer@enquirer.com