By Cliff Peale
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Procter & Gamble Co. will cut about 180 jobs at its Ivorydale plant complex, most by next spring, P&G told employees there this morning.

After the changes, P&G will own and operate only one mainline plant, making liquid laundry surfactant, in the 200-acre complex that is its oldest manufacturing plant.

The company said it will sell the plant that makes bar soaps including Zest, Safeguard and Ivory to Trillium Healthcare Products, Inc., which operates a division that makes mostly private-label soap products. P&G will continue to own the brands, and will contract the plant work to Trillium.

It also will transfer a power plant at Ivorydale to Cinergy Solutions Inc., and move production of Olay and Noxzema facial cloths to a Canadian plant.

Trillium will keep about 150 jobs at the bar-soap plant, down from about 220 now, P&G said. The facial-cloth relocation will eliminate about 61 jobs. About 38 P&G employees currently work at the power plant.

The changes are part of a North American plant restructuring that started in 1999, and has affected plant locations from Ontario to Alexandria, La. P&G chairman A.G. Lafley is trying to focus the company on core functions, while contracting out some manufacturing and other operations like utility plants.

But Ivorydale, which opened in 1886 making soap and candles, has long been a centerpiece for P&G's presence in its hometown.

The plant has seen the impact of P&G's restructuring. J.M. Smucker Co. now operates the Crisco plant, and Twin Rivers Technologies bought the plant that makes the fat substitute Olean. A powder detergent plant that made Tide at Ivorydale closed in 1998.