Dow Reichhold Specialty Latex will close its manufacturing plant in Chickamauga on Aug. 31. Company officials told employees Tuesday.

The plant, which employs 57 people, manufactures a variety of latex products. Products manufactured in the Chickamauga facility will be transferred to another site.

“This rationalization of production capacity is necessary to bring our capability in line with current market demand,” said Jeffrey Welker, president of Dow Reichhold, on Wednesday.

Dow Reichhold Specialty Latex LLC is a 50-50 joint venture of Dow Chemical Co. and Reichhold Inc. The company is headquartered in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina.

“The reason for the close is, we have too many manufacturing facilities and we simply needed to become more efficient in our manufacturing and consolidate all our manufacturing into one facility,” said Bob Cook of Cook Marketing Communications, which issued a written statement about the closing.

According to Cook, the one remaining facility will be in Cheswold, Del.

Cook said the decision to shut down the Chickamauga plant was made in the past week. The company is adjusting its manufacturing capabilities to meet the demand the company has for the products that are manufactured in both plants, he said.

“We simply had to get to the point where we had one plant operate, just to match up with the demand we were seeing in the market,” Cook said.

According to Cook, all employees at the Chickamauga plant will have severance pay available to them. Career counseling and outplacement have been set up for the employees, as well as other services the company can provide to help the employees through the transition, he said.

“The plant site and the actual physical shutdown of the plant is going to be done within all the guidelines of any environmental responsibility,” Cook said. “We are going to be working with all the state and local agencies to ensure that all the environmental regulations are adhered to as we close the plant and that there will be no issues related to the equipment, the buildings, the site when we are done with the facility,” he said.

According to the company’s website, Dow Reichhold Specialty Latex LLC is a global company with the largest selection of specialty latexes available in the market.

The company’s leading product line includes nitrile, styrene butadiene, acrylic, vinyl acrylic, styrene acrylic, vinyl acetate and vinylidene chloride specialty latexes.

The company’s products are used in gloves, architectural products, automotive products, construction and concrete modification, food processing, packaging, textile printing, specialty paper and nonwovens, and specialty coatings.