Thanks Cannibal for that quick find! Info to the history of Now http://www.nowfoods.com/AboutUs/HistoryofNOW/000395.htm They have a UK site and a partner in Canada called PureSource.
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Thanks Cannibal for that quick find! Info to the history of Now http://www.nowfoods.com/AboutUs/HistoryofNOW/000395.htm They have a UK site and a partner in Canada called PureSource.
My wife pop into the local chemist this morning and ask for some BLISS. The shop assistant looked on the shelf which was empty and said “I will check in the back as there has been demand for it from the radio advertising”. We managed to purchase a packet. Good to see it selling. Hopefully they will kept the shelf's stocked.
Yes, thanks Cannibal. It sure is an interesting time to be launching products. Happily the company now has roots down in a large number of distributors and countries. A larger number of Costcos will be carrying it again shortly, and we get to find out what's happening with food and Nestle in the not too distant future presumably. And hints of some development in Australia?
The last year has certainly shown us that the company has the firepower to implement their very ambitious plans, but also that we have to wait to find out when the cash flow will catch up, and we'll all be happy to see that point I'm sure. At some point, the sheer expansion of outlets must outgrow the world's nervousness. Presumably NZ is supplying some of that cashflow right now, with their second winter of resumed marketing.
Let's be accurate. The question is not "not selling", because it certainly is selling.
The article http://www.moosylvania.com/blog/file...ason+quote.pdf suggested "a dose of K12 adds about four US cents to a product, be it a lozenge or a pot of yoghurt." If so, then we might round that to around NZ$1 a bottle of lozenges, in which case the year's trading revenue of $1.238m is hardly "not selling". And further, they are definitely selling very well indeed to the target market of manufacturers and distributors. The question is only why sales did not increase last half noticeably, which is a different question. Even there, US sales did increase by a margin second half anyway, of course. And the trading loss was still very small.
Promise me you realise I am not here to champion the company, but in fact to discuss investment decisions! I did put a bit of work into finding those quotes as to the dire economic situation in the US, and I'm not sure it's entirely fair to just dismiss them without discussion. I think people would be pretty despondent here if house prices were down 30% and real unemployment was hanging around 20%. And of course it takes time to establish in a market in the best of times, anyway.
Investment is a matter of probabilities, and personally I read the probabilities here as looking good. I don't dispute that the outcome is unknown, and I totally respect that there are different points of views here.
But not in any real quantities. Look at totally unproven products that get associated with 'health'. A current favourite is Resveratrol. I don't know how well it sells in NZ but it's popular worldwide and has no scientific approval. Some bee or honey products are similar. It's largely a nonsense market, but if anything catches on - there's no stopping it. I'm not saying Blis is rubbish, or that it's not rubbish. I'm simply saying that for the number of outlets etc, the turnover is very very low. It just hasn't flown yet, so possibly it never will. Something just ain't working!
Well, by way of comparison, the 2001 report for Comvita, a successful company surely, http://www.comvita.com/annualreportsarchive_1.html reports sales in 1988 of 8.3m and in 1999 of 9.7m (p6). But they then set about a new strategy, "Comvita’s principal growth strategy is to shift from being an exporter to an international marketer of natural health products and health solutions" (p8) http://www.comvita.com/annualreportsarchive_1.html# thus reaching $18m in 2002, $71m in 2009, and $84m in 2010. That's a 17% increase in that first decade, but nearly ten-fold increase next decade after changing strategy.
Comvita wound/skincare honey, by the way, is a superbly effective product to go by my own experience.
What does that tell us? I'm not sure. Things can take time to establish, but on the other hand can grow quickly with a change in strategy. I would have said Blis's strategy was aimed at faster growth still. Also, the same percentage growth is small at first in dollar terms, but ever more effective in dollar terms later on, which is likely to be the case with Blis as well presumably. The uncertainty with Blis at present is surely about trying to sense a stable initial level. Maybe we got that last report, or maybe it will change quite a bit over the next year or so. My guess is the latter, but only time will tell.
Of course, although that's interesting to compare to, we haven't got an actual probiotic ingredient's history to actually compare to. Only time will tell ... as we keep getting back to.
It may or may not be a nonsense market but it is certainly a burgeoning market - http://blog.taragana.com/pr/marketsa...-by-2014-6686/
An interesting read. US$32,600,000,000 is a good number...
On a more tactical level - this from CulturedCare's FaceBook page -
"Hmmm. We noticed a lot of visitors to our website this weekend, plus one of our retailers had a spike in Probiotic Gum sales. Were we on TV or radio or something? Anybody see/hear something?"
"Ah yes... Professor John Tagg interview for Australian TV is generating a LOT of interest!"
Was in south australia this week and a big deal was made of k12 gum on the news .Positive advertising thats for sure.