MeadWestvaco Corp. is planning to close a manufacturing plant in Louisa County, eliminating 171 jobs, as the packaging company continues to restructure its business operations.
The Henrico County-based company filed a notice with the state yesterday indicating it would close the plant on Industrial Drive in Louisa in May.
However, a company spokeswoman said the shutdown and job cuts will be phased and could take until the end of the year. The plant makes plastic and paperboard packaging for personal-care and health products.
"This is the first big hit we've taken, so really, we've been very fortunate," said Willie L. Harper, chairman of the Louisa Board of Supervisors, referring to the county's otherwise steady progress during the recession.
He said the rural central Virginia county between Richmond and Charlottesville will see a Wal-Mart Supercenter established at Zion Crossroads this spring that could generate other businesses.
In addition, Harper said he believes the economy may be keeping shoppers closer to home who may have traveled to Richmond or Charlottesville to shop during better times.
The closing of the Louisa plant is part of a larger, long-term restructuring, which MeadWestvaco announced in January that it was accelerating.
The goal is to cut costs and focus on more profitable product lines as the company deals with the recession, which has affected demand for consumer packaging.
The Fortune 500 company announced in January that it would eliminate 2,000 jobs -- 10 percent of its worldwide work force -- and close or restructure 12 to 14 of its 53 manufacturing plants worldwide by the end of this year to save $250 million to $300 million by mid-2010.
MeadWestvaco has reached about half of that work-force reduction goal, spokeswoman Alison von Puschendorf said.
In January, the company announced that the job cuts would include 75 employees from its staff of about 750 at its corporate headquarters in Henrico.
MeadWestvaco leases the 110,000-square-foot Louisa plant, von Puschendorf said. Some of the paperboard converting at that plant will be moved to a plant in Melrose Park, Ill.
The company is exiting one of the product lines produced at the Louisa plant -- visual plastic folding -- except for some product lines for which it holds patents.
"We have identified a line of business that is not profitable for us and does not represent long-term growth opportunities," von Puschendorf said. "It is part of aligning our footprint with the business strategy."
MeadWestvaco has about 2,500 employees in Virginia. It also owns a paper mill in Covington that employs 1,371 people and a paper-converting plant in Low Moor, near Covington, with about 180 employees.
Contact John Reid Blackwell at (804) 775-8123 or jblackwell@timesdispatch.com.
Staff writer Bill McKelway contributed to this report.
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