The world's largest consumer products company, Procter & Gamble, has said it plans to sell the plant that makes it much-touted fat substitute.

P&G said late Friday it plans to sell its olestra plant in Cincinnati, Ohio, as part of its strategy to unload under-utilised assets.

Massachusetts-based Twin Rivers Technologies, a P&G supplier, will continue to manufacture the firm's controversial Olean brand of fat substitute used in a variety of foods.

Olestra came under heavy scrutiny after it was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1996 because it made some people who ate foods made with it ill, sometimes resulting in abdominal cramps and diarrhoea.