Hi Ryan, he didn't give any specifics on anything. He stressed that he will be focusing on maintaining his margins this year. That in 1998 he would be advertising very heavily with cable TV and billboards etc. to create more public awareness of their products. This will of course be a part of operating expenses so it will affect earnings. They have some very interesting new products in development right now that should be out this year sometime, he hired some very professional people to work on them. He wouldn't disclose anything about the other products in development with GGEN other than they should be on the shelves this year. He considers the 1st quarter, (right now), still in the gearing up phase. He said that he has been delegating more and more tasks to others in the company. They will probably be selling Yogurito to Mexico sometime later and in small bottles instead of the quarts because he has had alot of requests for that. He commented that the Yogurito line has been very successful. Profit margins would no doubt be a little higher in single size servings. They also plan to sell kefir in single servings size sometime in the future as well. He didn't say this, but this would probably open up distribution to vending machines and with a shelf life of 70 days it would be a good product for them. He said and I quote, " Basics Plus is where we are going to make alot of money." So far it has been in only a test market for 1 1/2 months. They sell it in Chicago, N.Y. and have twice shipped it to Russia.
He talked at length about why he is not worried about competition which I will post in another post because it is 3:00am right now and I have to get some sleep.
He summarized the conversation by saying that they were doing extremely good and that he couldn't believe that they accomplished all that they did in 1997. They paid off 40% of the mortgage on the new facility, paid for all of the new equipment, have the new facility online, launched Basics Plus and some other things which I forgot. He personally designed most of the new equipment and it will be easy to add new machines in the future. He said the new facility is a beauty. It's the largest facility in the U.S. for producing kefir. He did say that they are still in the gearing up phase. He said they have so many things going on and there is only so much time to get it all done. So 1997 was the year of getting the new plant online and mostly paid for, 1998 will be the year of heavy advertising, developing and launching new products and increasing distribution. This goes with what I have been saying about growth accelerating thru the year. Don't look for a moonshot. He has been planning everything out. He pretty much summed it up when he said they accomplished all of the above and still made money. He is very enthusiastic about what he is doing which makes him all the better at what he does.
I will talk about competition tomorrow.
Mark |
