By 2000, however, unilever found that it was still lagging its competitors, so the company embarked upon another reorgenization. This time the goal was to cut the number of brands that unilever sold from 1,600 to just 400 that could be marketed on a regional or global scale. To support this new focus, the company planned to reduce the number of manufacturing plants from 380 to about 280 by 2004.