BLT - Blis Technologies [Archive] - Page 5

emearg

04-01-2010, 11:14 AM

I think you are expecting that Blis will take advantage of cash to invest heavily in the future, whereas I expect they will balance that with feeding the shareholders. Considering we seem both to be near the top of the polls on optimism on Blis, it is quite odd how differently we see the result for shareholders!

Invest heavily? Anything I say here would just be my opinion. Barry has said they will invest in product development. How heavily???

There will be a limit to how much they can invest in the regulatory work, as it requires huge input from the technical people with the product knowledge. This is bad from a rapid growth point of view, but good from a cash burn perspective.

I'm optimistic Blis will do well given time. I'm not so optimistic that there will be large profits anytime soon, nor as I have said before do I expect dividends anytime soon.

I could be wrong as noted before.

Basically I'm open minded about dividends. I would love them but don't have my heart set on them.

Looking back a year or 18 months some contributors thought we would already have been receiving them by now. Obviously that was a little optimistic. I am trying to be realistic.

Plus I now have more preference shares than ordinaries (at a conversion ratio of 25 to 1) so I have a nice dividend stream from them.

It is excellent to have so many different opinions being expressed. As we have both noted before, one only has to look back two, five or more years to see the optimism that has been expressed on these threads. There are a lot of disappointed contributors/BLT share owners. Only now is the company starting to get going. Will it go as far as we hope? We don't know. Will it go far enough to have a reliable dividend stream? Still speculative in my opinion but far less so than 18 months ago!!

Still, I would rather own BLT than WDT.

Anybody want to buy some WDT?

Sell your dodgy BLT and buy some of my WDT please ;-)

Go on!! You know you want to...

simla

04-01-2010, 11:46 AM

Okay, sounds like we disagree on how fast the growth can be then. I confess to being pretty optimistic on where revenue goes from here, but I can't cite anything to justify it except gut instinct. This where it gets exciting, I hope. Already, it is only 12 weeks to the end of the financial year, and Blis are still expecting quite a few developments during that time according to the last report.

Good on you for having a bash with WDT. This year will be pretty important to them too. I'm still keeping an eye on them.

winner69

04-01-2010, 12:37 PM

Where have you guys been? - health products are big business - eg the herbal antidepressant St John's wort enjoys enormous world-wide sales (maybe boosted by long-suffering Blis shareholders!)

Talking of St Johns Wort have you guys looked at Blackmores (BKL.ASX) to see what is possible in these types of markets

Now a $200m plus sales company with NPAT margins over 19% .... revenues growing every year .... up from $60m 10 years ago

With a shareprice of $21 Blackmores market cap is $350m .... trades a 1.7 annual sales and a PE of 17 ... to give you some idea of valuations at maturity .... and they have been in business since the 1930's

simla

04-01-2010, 04:53 PM

simla

04-01-2010, 05:07 PM

Invest heavily? Anything I say here would just be my opinion. Barry has said they will invest in product development. How heavily???

Yes, I probably put the "heavily" in myself. But Blis has done everything on a big scale for a while now. I find it difficult to believe that that momentum is going to stop any time soon. They are already looking at products that are not just for the mouth, aren't they? Set up your distribution and marketing channels on a worldwide basis, build up brand credibility ... then the next logical step would be to insert more things into the channel, perhaps?

emearg

04-01-2010, 07:56 PM

They are already looking at products that are not just for the mouth, aren't they? Set up your distribution and marketing channels on a worldwide basis, build up brand credibility ... then the next logical step would be to insert more things into the channel, perhaps?

Yes, I think your conclusion is spot on. Adding more products should be relatively cheap once the ground work has been completed. Getting M18 out there should be far easier than it was to launch K12. Q24 or whatever comes next should be similar if the products have a fair bit in common?

emearg

04-01-2010, 08:09 PM

Well, big numbers are certainly possible. Bioguard sells for US$18.69. What if BLT got $5 of that on the grounds that the product revolves entirely around K12. And if it sells into all of the US, or $300m people, what if it sold 3 million bottles over winter, or one bottle per 100 people? (Or one household in 600 buying two bottles, which would be like 40,000 bottles into NZ.) After all, if Costco have turnover of $71b, that's $236 per person in the US by my maths (which is pretty incredible to me), so they know how to sell things. And they seem to be pushing Bioguard in their emails, so perhaps in-store too. And if not this winter, then next?

That would be big numbers for sure, certainly somewhat more than 50% sales growth. But unfortunately we have absolutely no way whatsoever of judging appropriate scale at all, so we'll just have to wait. Always fun to imagine big numbers though, isn't it!

Good fun indeed!

Considering there is Blis, Frutarom, Imagenetix and Costco in the chain I doubt very much that Blis gets $5 per sale. Having said that, I have no idea how much they will get, but if I was to play numbers I would think $2 or $3 might be a more realistic figure?

But you might be right at $5

It is really hard to know who will get how much of the pie under the structure that is in place.

brucea

04-01-2010, 08:37 PM

It is great to hear views on this post that somehow support my own on the future bright prospects of Blis! Cynical friends of mine muse that one day in the (hopefully) distant future when I am on my deathbed I will hear that Blis have finally made a huge profit and their shares have zoomed and that I will be so p****d off at the irony of it all that it will finish me off .... my nieces and nephews will be out partying no doubt (I am single). By the way, I have a few other speculative shares - WDT (enuff said), Charlies (alas) and Xero (promising). I hold more shares with mainstream, but boring, companies.

winner69

05-01-2010, 11:28 AM

Costco have turnover of $71b, that's $236 per person in the US by my maths (which is pretty incredible to me), so they know how to sell things.

For comparison The Warehouse does NZ$370 odd per perosn in NZ ... and they don't have any food while Woolworths in NZ do nearly NZ$1,200 per person

Just for interest sake

simla

05-01-2010, 01:45 PM

Not bad for The Warehouse, but Costco have plenty of competition. Woolworths not that surprising as everybody has to buy food and there's not much choice. Thanks for that though.

brucea

06-01-2010, 09:09 AM

I found this link which is dated 6/01/10, although there is probably nothing much new in the content http://unlimited.co.nz/unlimited.nsf/money/blis-technologies-on-the-up

emearg

06-01-2010, 10:12 AM

Today's ASB Securities/ShareChat Daily Brief included a link to this:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/3207843/Biotech-firm-seeks-partners

simla

07-01-2010, 03:17 PM

Good to see coverage of Blis ever so slowly coming to light.

I can't believe how far Blis has got on the upswing while the world holds its breath on the down swing in things more general. An interesting race, but the further Blis gets now the better it will withstand whatever may (or may not) be about to unfold in the wider world. Governments' debts can't continually expand exponentially without there being consequence sooner or later. As usual, I feel Blis's ability to expand will exceed the world's desire to contract, but I'd say it could nevertheless make for interesting times yet.

emearg

08-01-2010, 12:52 PM

Not much of interest in this but I thought I would post anyway:
http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Industry/Kiwi-nutraceuticals-target-US

CulturedCare has started its free gum giveaway thing on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/CulturedCare

They have picked up 40 new followers in the last two and a half hours.

Their followers count is now up to 173.

It will be interesting to see how rapid the growth is. A little like rabbits breeding I suspect...

simla

08-01-2010, 03:56 PM

simla

08-01-2010, 04:42 PM

Half an hour later, and there are 54 entries on google. Looks like 1000 may not take long. I wonder how you decide if a campaign like this achieved what you wanted?

brucea

08-01-2010, 06:14 PM

I was in a shop yesterday and there was another customer at the counter who had REALLY bad breath! I suppose most people would be too coy to tell him - alas if only I could have slipped him some of that new gum or twittered him about his problem - I would be surprised if he could ever keep a girlfriend. I can sort of figure out how Facebook works but Twitter has me defeated - maybe I am too old..... It would seem to be a great way to spread the news about the product though. I will be watching the Twitter site with interest. Thanks Simla for the info.

Cannibal

09-01-2010, 08:24 AM

Probiotic Gum

Published January 6, 2010

(http://www.nutraceuticalsworld.com/contents/view/15184)

Frutarom and Tab Labs have collaborated to introduce a probiotic gum that features BLIS K12 oral probiotic bacteria, which is recognized as an immune system booster. This functional gum, designed for adults as well as children, is available in Mint and Fruit flavors. The BLIS K12 dose per serving (one piece) is 20 mg—an amount shown to help boost immune system protection, according to the companies.

emearg

09-01-2010, 09:53 AM

The chewing gum twitter giveaway campaign is quite clever. To get a free packet of gum, you have to be one of the first 1000 to send out a twitter about the gum to other people. Since you also have to have at least 20 followers of your tweets, then the first such 1000 tweets should theoretically be read by at least 20,000 people (and they have to be in Canada.)

Actually if there is a lot of cross over it may not be read by many more than 1000 people. i.e. you are tweeting, you have twenty followers, and they all have the same twenty followers as you the numbers don't swell they way you would first think.

But, I suspect it will be seen my many many more than 20,000 people. Reasons:
1) Many participants will have far more than twenty followers
2) Many tweet recipients won't live in Canada, but they will receive the tweet anyway
3) Many people who send the tweet won't understand the terms and conditions (residential country, complete profile, twenty followers etc) and therefore won't be eligible to be one of the 1,000 recipients.

I think what this will achieve is get a lot of people seeing the words Blis K12 for the first time. It will create some brand awareness. It will obviously do the same for the CulturedCare Probiotic Gum. Many of the tweet recipients won't be able to buy the gum but it will get some thinking...

I think it is an excellent way to spread the word.

42 Below did a similar thing years ago with flash files that were emailed all over the place as they were funny. That was a great way to get their brand out there for very little money. At the time, many recipients wouldn't have been able to buy the vodka in their country, or didn't drink vodka, but it was still a cheap way to spread the word...

(I'm not much of an expert on twitter. Can anyone tell me just why someone might choose to be a follower of the cultured care twitter, or any other company's twitter?)

I'm not into Twitter but I suspect it is a little like being a fan of a company/product/whatever on FaceBook. If you are interested in something you become a fan and then you receive information about that company/product/whatever.

emearg

09-01-2010, 09:59 AM

Half an hour later, and there are 54 entries on google. Looks like 1000 may not take long. I wonder how you decide if a campaign like this achieved what you wanted?

Hard to know Simla. I am sure CulturedCare have some ideas:
1) 1,000 Tweets were sent within the one month time frame they have set
2) Early sales targets are met
3) Their CulturedCare website receives a lot of visitors?
4) There is considerable chatter about their new product out there on the internet)
5) Goodness knows what else!

From a Blis/Frutatrom point of view, at least we know enough ingredient has been sold to make 1,000 packs of gum, and presumably enough product to make the retail launch this month possible.

emearg

09-01-2010, 10:02 AM

Klink

09-01-2010, 10:14 AM

This seems to be new competition from the USA:

Oragenics http://www.oragenics.com/

Has launched "evora plus" http://www.evoraplus.com/

"EvoraPlus™, from Oragenics, is a one-of-a-kind probiotic mint that naturally supports gum and tooth health while freshening breath and whitening teeth.
Healthy gums and teeth
EvoraPlus™ probiotic mints naturally support gum and tooth health with the powerful key ingredient of patented Probiora3™ probiotics. These natural resident beneficial bacteria of very healthy mouths set up a “base camp” in the mouth and crowd out the problematic, harmful bacteria.
Learn more about healthy gums and teeth…
Fresher breath
The key to beating bad breath is keeping the bad bacteria that inhabit the mouth in check. The blend of beneficial bacteria incorporated into EvoraPlus™ works to balance the population of the periodontal bacteria that create bad breath. By binding to the teeth and deep beneath the gum line, the beneficial bacteria work to inhibit and exclude the destructive bacteria from overpopulating and creating imbalances in the mouth.
Learn more about naturally fresher breath…
Naturally whitens teeth
One of the most powerful and unique properties of the probiotic blend used in EvoraPlus™ is their ability to release a low level form of hydrogen peroxide as a normal by-product. The continuous low doses of hydrogen peroxide created by the Probiora3™ blend of beneficial bacteria naturally whiten teeth without creating tooth sensitivity or gum irritation."

Containing three probiotics blended as " ProBiora3™"

http://www.probiora3.com/probiora3/

I particularly noted that this website lists quite a number of delivery mechanisms (which Blis seems to have been struggling with)

http://www.probiora3.com/product-applications/

"Some ideal applications for ProBiora3™ include:

Gels
Powders
Gum
Fast-melt tabs
Toothpaste
Dissolvable strips
Foods
Powdered Beverages
Novelty frozen desserts
Ideal for pet products"

Whether these delivery mechanisms have actually been developed is not clear to me.

I quite liked the "http://www.rttnews.com/ViewPR.aspx?PrID=540337&SMap=1"
"Teddy's pride" application - oral care and fresh breath application for your dog

brucea

09-01-2010, 09:18 PM

Alas, I doubt whether the "Teddy's Pride" or even Bioguard could deal with bad breath problems in cats and dogs as I understand this is usually caused by tartar build up which the vet can remove by de-scaling the animal's teeth so their claims appear a little dubious. Chicken necks and special cat biscuits are used as diet to minimise tartar build up on cat's teeth. As for competition - that is GREAT as it raises the awareness of probiotics and oral health in general and I am sure Blis K12 would successfully complete with "EvoraPlus" and the market would be big enough for more than one player (think of the number of companies selling St John Wort). Interesting though to see they have GRAS approval which must bode well for Blis K12. This might be simplistic, but I think Blis K12 has more credibility than this new product...

emearg

09-01-2010, 10:51 PM

A few random thoughts:

From what I can see it looks like this company is taking a similar approach in the US as Blis took in NZ five years ago. They have a retail product and are trying to get retailers to sell it.

Have they patented the active probiotics? Are they special or do they exist naturally?

From a quick read it appears that this product works by filling up your mouth with good bacteria so there isn't room for the baddies. Obviously the user has to try to provide a good environment for this to occur. While that is pretty cool, it isn't really that impressive is it?

The teeth whitening bit does sound pretty good. That would appeal to people if it is proven not to be harmful to a recipient's teeth.

It seems to me that as far as the science is concerned Blis K12 has the upper hand in that it is the dominant species in the oral cavity. That and the fact it targets and destroys the bad bacteria meaning it doesn't have to wait for space to colonise the oral cavity. It is the only probiotic that does that. Should it be necessary, Frutaroms marketing department (and their customers) will be able to leverage that to outshine this competition.

The market is plenty big enough for multiple competitors. The market needs to be grown. This should help.

If the EvoraPlus was to be sold as an ingredient I don't see any reason why it couldn't be combined with Blis K12 and Blis M18 for some products. Toothpaste would be an obvious choice.

Their list of delivery mechanisms sound good but as you query Klink they don't say if this is a list of product formats or product concepts.

Actually (terrible English I know to start a sentence with actually but what the hell) it is interesting to check out the Blis website. Is this a new page?
http://blis.co.nz/?go=Corporate&c=Corporate-BLIS-K12&p=Product-Formats

I don't remember seeing all the items on it? Powder? Mouthwash powder? Gargle powder? Do any of you know about products based on these? Are we talking about Rapid EVE Gargle here? I would have thought the last one is covered, but the other two?

Them having GRAS (I can't find that anywhere but Brucea says it is so) gives them an opportunity. They have to take advantage of that opportunity...

brucea

09-01-2010, 11:15 PM

The reference to GRAS approval can be found at http://www.probiora3.com/product_introducing-probiora3/
I think this product is good news for Blis as it can only raise the profile of oral probiotics in general.

emearg

10-01-2010, 09:55 AM

I think what this will achieve is get a lot of people seeing the words Blis K12 for the first time. It will create some brand awareness. It will obviously do the same for the CulturedCare Probiotic Gum. Many of the tweet recipients won't be able to buy the gum but it will get some thinking...

Actually the tweet doesn't contain the words Blis K12 so unless recipients go the CulturedCare website they won't see the branding Blis K12.

The number of followers is now over 250. It is increasing slower than I originally thought it would. Having looked at a few of the tweeters profiles I was correct about a lot of them not being eligible. Too few followers, incomplete profiles, don't live in Canada etc. The best news is that lots of them have hundreds of followers. So, there will need to be many more than 1,000 new followers for the competition to close, and a very large number of people will receive the tweet.

It is an interesting concept...

simla

10-01-2010, 11:33 AM

I thought the gum tweet was fairly well worded for referring to what it was selling (although gum rather than K12, as you say) and providing an easy link. If you look at some of the tweeters own twitter lists, you'll see huge volumes of marketing twitter washing around the place, and it is astonishing how few of them mention their products at all - which seems like a huge lost opportunity to me - or are even comprehendible. However, given the general banality of most twitter I've ever seen, I have to wonder how many people actually read any given tweet. (I would have thought tweets would have a bigger future if there was room for about 100 more characters in them, so that they could contain more meaning.)

Still, most marketers seem hot to trot on twitter, so presumably there is evidence it all works to a useful end, and obviously we wish them luck here.

Thanks for pointing out the new product, Klink. I agree that more competition is probably good at this stage. I don't think the Blis format list has changed from when I last saw it, Emearg, but I could be wrong.

simla

10-01-2010, 11:41 AM

Did you guys spot this new detail on the CC facebook page about when the gum is hitting the market? http://www.facebook.com/CulturedCare.Probiotics#info_edit_sections

"We're getting many inquiries from our American friends about how they can buy our new Probiotic Gum w/ BLIS K12 when it launches in late January.

It will ONLY be distributed in Canada to start... BUT you will be able to purchase it online from one of our Canadian retail partners once the gum hits the shelves (forecast for mid-February 2010)."

Cannibal

10-01-2010, 12:56 PM

Good fun indeed!

Considering there is Blis, Frutarom, Imagenetix and Costco in the chain I doubt very much that Blis gets $5 per sale. Having said that, I have no idea how much they will get, but if I was to play numbers I would think $2 or $3 might be a more realistic figure?

But you might be right at $5

It is really hard to know who will get how much of the pie under the structure that is in place.

It is unlikely to be as high as even $2. Swanson sell Oral Ultra Probiotic with 3 billion K12 for US$5.99 for 30 tablets.

emearg

10-01-2010, 02:09 PM

It is unlikely to be as high as even $2. Swanson sell Oral Ultra Probiotic with 3 billion K12 for US$5.99 for 30 tablets.

Actually there are 3 billion bacteria, but K12 is only one of six ingredients in their 'propritary blend'. They don't actually tell us how much K12 is in each tablet.

Also, we were talking about the BioGuard product which has 75 tablets where as the Swanson only has 30. So $5.99 * 2.5 = $15. So it is possible that Simla is close. Or I was. Or you are. I really don't know!

I have come to the conclusion that our ability to forecast the full year revenue with any certainty is very minimal. We just don't have enough information to be accurate.

All we know is that their is quite a lot happening around the planet, and the news is likely to be pretty good (or at least I am expecting it to be).

That said, trying to come up with a forecast is a good way to get the brain ticking over so I'm certainly not discouraging it!

brucea

10-01-2010, 03:24 PM

Do any of you guys know who are the majority shareholders of Blis shares? I recall reading it some time ago, so it must be public knowledge. I gather most of these shareholders hold on to their shares as turnover in Blis shares is quite light. Would I be right to assume most of the current selling is by those prudent (although maybe at the time, some might have said foolish!!) enough to buys Blis on the earlier lows of this year?

emearg

10-01-2010, 05:29 PM

Easiest way to find out is to check out the annual report. It is on the Blis site if you don't have a copy.

It is really hard to know who is selling unless a notice goes through.

People thought the buyers were mad at 4 cents. No doubt many think buyers now at 11 - 13 cents are mad as well. They may be right but if they are that makes me pretty darn crazy!!!

I bought some on the lows (4 cents) and I'm not selling! I now wish I had bought more, but there were plenty of options for money back in the day (early 2009). Was good buying, and not just for Blis. People were scared, especially of the speculative shares.

Perhaps some long time holders who bought at prices many times the current price have had more than enough and have decided to get out while the share price is above it's lows?

simla

10-01-2010, 06:25 PM

I have come to the conclusion that our ability to forecast the full year revenue with any certainty is very minimal. We just don't have enough information to be accurate.

The most likely result remains steady but good growth, as reputation takes time to grow. But it sure is nice to finally see the definite possibility of upside surprises, and also the decreased chance of downside surprises. Of course, we still haven't actually seen a maiden profit yet.

Silverlight

11-01-2010, 09:57 AM

Do any of you guys know who are the majority shareholders of Blis shares?

Holders with more than 1m shares and %

OTAGO INNOVATION LIMITED 7,481,433 5.39
EDINBURGH EQUITY NOMINEE LIMITED 7,017,544 5.05
MICHAEL HERBERT BIRD 7,000,000 5.04
CUSTODIAL SERVICES LIMITED <4 A/C> 5,713,500 4.11
SOUTHERN DIAGNOSTICS LIMITED 4,433,609 3.19
BABO INVESTMENTS LIMITED 2,509,870 1.81
JOHN ROBERT TAGG 2,413,878 1.74
LOUIS MERVYN CRIMP 2,185,055 1.57
PORTFOLIO CUSTODIAN LIMITED <22560 A/C> 1,700,000 1.22
FORSYTH BARR CUSTODIANS LIMITED <1L A/C> 1,575,090 1.13
LEE PATERSON FAMILY TRUST COMPANY LIMITED 1,415,958 1.02
NEW ZEALAND CENTRAL SECURITIES DEPOSITORY LIMITED 1,376,045 0.99
MINGCHUN QIU 1,200,000 0.86
BEVAN HUGH WALLACE 1,071,000 0.77
SOK E BOEY & KAY H CHIAM & YEOW A CHIAM & SHEN M CHIAM * 1,000,000 0.72
JOHN RICHARD PROSSER 1,000,000 0.72
JOHN WASHINGTON SMITH 1,000,000 0.72

brucea

11-01-2010, 11:16 AM

Many thanks Silverlight... does anyone know who "Southern Diagnostics Limited" is? Is that connected with Southern Community Laboratories that is now owned by Healthscope? I have googled but cannot find any reference to this company

Silverlight

11-01-2010, 11:46 AM

does anyone know who "Southern Diagnostics Limited" is?

According to Companies Office website beneficial owners are:

Christopher John Swann & Trevor Donald Scott.

Edit: Additionally the sole director is Stuart McKinlay (head of mastercard NZ) and was a director of Hirequip (southern capital limited) which delisted in April 2007.

emearg

11-01-2010, 04:33 PM

TEL AVIV -- Frutarom , the Haifa, Israel, producer of flavors and fragrances, was upgraded to buy from neutral at UBS, where analysts Thomas Gilbert and Roni Biron boosted their 12-month price target to 45 shekels from 32 shekels (to $11.99 from $8.53). "Due to a niche position in the flavors market and a focused growth-orientated management, Frutarom has above-average growth potential from here. At current valuations ... this potential is greatly underappreciated," the analysts wrote in a report dated Wednesday. The company's private-label business is gaining market share; Frutarom provides quality service to small and mid-size foods producers; and it has room to grow in emerging markets, the analysts wrote. In addition, "management has an impressive track record of delivering" on acquisitions, they wrote. Acquisitions from 2009 through 2013 should add 14% a year to revenue, the UBS analysts wrote.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/markets/industries/retail/frutarom-upgraded-buy-neutral-ubs/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxbusiness%2Frealestate+%28T ext+-+Industries+-+Real+Estate%29

simla

11-01-2010, 10:33 PM

It certainly is a good sign that a company like Frutarom is apparently embracing Blis quite actively. Consider http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Frutaroms-Net-Profit-prnews-470682558.html?x=0&.v=101 :

"Frutarom sales in the third quarter of 2009 totaled US$ 111.6 M"
"Frutarom (LSE: FRUT, TASE: FRUT, OTC: FRUTF, OTC: FRUTF.PK) the seventh largest company in the field of flavors and specialty fine ingredients..."

The implication is presumably that they think the sales potential of Blis is worth the effort on the scale that they work to (although they do sell a lot of products.) Indeed, when Blis announced the Frutarom alliance in October 2008 http://www.blis.co.nz/userfiles/file/Annoucements/BLIS%20PR%2020%20October%202008.pdf :

"Mr Laurent Leduc is the Vice President of the Health Division for Frutarom USA. He said “This is a significant opportunity for us to expand our business around a product with both an exceptional safety profile and excellent record of clinical validation for its effectiveness in preventing many common infections of the upper airways and oral cavity.” “The great thing about BLIS K12,” Mr Leduc said, “is that it has no peers in the market. This product is unique and with the patents around it, it will likely remain that way for a long time”

I wonder what their internal sales targets are for Blis.

brucea

12-01-2010, 09:52 AM

emearg

12-01-2010, 11:38 AM

One very interesting future development - I am sure I read that Blis referred to the application of K12 (or maybe it is a related strain of streptococcus) for treating skin infections (??impetigo maybe??) but I have not heard further about this. Does anyone have further information? If this proved successful there could be a huge market for this type of product.

It is Micrococcus luteus (Q24). They have a patent for it in NZ. They say it has potential uses in key topical applications. In the rights document in March 2009 they said "most of these developments are in the early phase of commercialisation, but they represent the future product 'pipeline' of the Company". Another of the developments they were referring to was S. Salivarius Mia (now branded Blis M18) and that started appearing in products only six months later so it is hard to know where this one is at. Gut feeling is it won't be here anytime soon as they don't have wide patent coverage and it isn't a food ingredient so it is quite different from their other two probiotics and will therefore need quite a different distribution model. But who knows?

Blis has made it clear that once they become profitable they will invest more on bringing other products to market. How long that will take is unknown. Whether they will succeed or not is unknown.

Until they announce a market is available and the first sales have been made I think it is best not to get too excited!

Check this out for a little history that shows many things that were planned haven't eventuated, and those that have have taken much longer than planned:
http://www.sharechat.co.nz/search.html?query=blis+technologies

The good news is that under Barry's leadership much more is happening, and it is happening much quicker...

It is good to know they don't plan on being a one product company. Or even two now that Blis M18 is getting going.

brucea

12-01-2010, 11:42 AM

.... the power of Google ....for those of you who wish to read a scientific article update on S salivarius check out the link http://www.springerlink.com/content/1274504582628341/ Dated 21 Nov 2009, it costs $US34 to download.
I have downloaded the article this morning - very interesting piece at the end (quote) "The potential for application of BLIS producing probiotics which are available right now for the control of streptococcal infections, is immense. The bacterial interference approach to infection control can be applied to a wide range of common bacterial infections such as dental caries, periodontal (gum) disease, vaginal infections and acne. This natural approach to infection control is cost effective, easily implemented ...etc"

brucea

12-01-2010, 11:51 AM

Thanks Emearg for the link ...esp to read about the heady days when Blis shares reached $2.20 ..if that happens again I'll be retired and lying on a tropical beach somewhere, sipping a cocktail and logging in to www.sharetrader to see what you guys are up to ....

emearg

12-01-2010, 12:02 PM

$2.20 would value Blis at over 300 million. Taking the preference shares into account bumps the figure to a total of 470 million.

I'm not holding my breath :-)

simla

12-01-2010, 02:22 PM

So the upper limit of your profit forecast for the full year is "less than $20m", Emearg! At a PE of 15, $2.20 would be reached with a profit of about $20m on the existing 138m shares.

In my printed copy of the Notice of Special Meeting for 8 November 2007 about the rights issue (I can't find a copy on the internet), it says on page 16, under "Future Direction of the Company", "to achieve an annual turnover of more than $25m within the next 5 to 10 years." Well, nobody could possibly hold them to such a vague objective, of course, but it does illustrate that the company thinks big numbers are possible. They just turned out a half year revenue of $1m, but there isn't any suggestion of slowing down, rather of just beginning.

I read something about the investor John Templeton once. He had congratulated himself on selling his $1 shares for $5, only to watch them go to $100, as I recall it. Brucea, perhaps when you log in from your tropical beach, will you be wondering why you sold out at $2.20!

As always, though, we must wait for the future to see what Blis's actual potential is. Fun to think big numbers, but we're nowhere near that now. Some readers will be cross, correctly remembering for how many years Blis investors have been imagining bright futures. Are things finally coming into line? And what revenue levels are actually possible in the end? Only time will tell, as usual.

emearg

12-01-2010, 02:47 PM

So the upper limit of your profit forecast for the full year is "less than $20m", Emearg! At a PE of 15, $2.20 would be reached with a profit of about $20m on the existing 138m shares.

In my printed copy of the Notice of Special Meeting for 8 November 2007 about the rights issue (I can't find a copy on the internet), it says on page 16, under "Future Direction of the Company", "to achieve an annual turnover of more than $25m within the next 5 to 10 years." Well, nobody could possibly hold them to such a vague objective, of course, but it does illustrate that the company thinks big numbers are possible. They just turned out a half year revenue of $1m, but there isn't any suggestion of slowing down, rather of just beginning

I suspect their profit will be less than 20 million. Approximately 20 million less actually...

2007 was a long time ago now. The only have 2 -7 years left to achieve that goal. Big difference between that revenue and making enough money to justify a share price of $2.20. And of course by the time revenues are anywhere near that target the preference shares will have converted into ordinaries meaning the profit will need to be even greater to achieve a PE of 15.

Anyone else listening to Matinee Idle? I keep expecting them to play California Dreaming for some reason?

simla

12-01-2010, 03:17 PM

Fair comment, of course. But consider this history of aspartame (nutrasweet). It is of course one of the all time top selling ingredients ever, and even my optimism doesn't come close to Blis doing this well, but it is nevertheless illustrative of how ingredients are a bigger market than they might look.

http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/NutraSweet-Company-Company-History.html :

"Aspartame was discovered in 1965"
"aspartame finally received FDA approval in 1981."
"Sales of aspartame reached $74 million in 1982, when Searle decided to create the NutraSweet brand name."
"The big money in sweeteners was in low-calorie drinks, however, and Searle received approval to include aspartame in carbonated beverages in 1983."
"In the meantime, Searle worked to increase aspartame production, which could not meet demand anyway. In 1983 construction began on a $100 million aspartame plant in Georgia."
"Sales of low-calorie powdered drink mixes using NutraSweet were booming as the entire diet foods sector grew dramatically. "

"When it created the name NutraSweet in 1983, a logo--a red and white swirl--was designed to go along with it. Searle spent $40 million advertising NutraSweet, and got food manufacturers to display the NutraSweet logo on products that used it. The trademark demand was initially unpopular with retailers of products made with Nutrasweet, though some changed their minds when they found that promoting NutraSweet as an ingredient increased demand for their products. Searle's initial ad campaign focused on the number and variety of products that used NutraSweet and the fact that they displayed the red swirl. The move was partly designed to put pressure on soft drink manufacturers and others that used a blend of NutraSweet and saccharin. The firm also wanted to lock up the artificial sweetener market for NutraSweet before its aspartame patent expired in 1992.

"NutraSweet sales amounted to over $700 million in 1985."

Of course, this was a product whose time had most assuredly come, and with serious money behind it. But it does illustrate that ingredients can quickly grow in market size. And interesting, too, that Blis don't seem to have missed any of the morals in this story. Of course, it was a different product, different times, different financial backing (but "Frutarom sales in the third quarter of 2009 totaled US$ 111.6 M", a few posts back?)

Now I'm not personally expecting Blis to reach these very heady heights, as nutrasweet is a very special product indeed, but it does nevertheless seem to illustrate that there might be quite a bit of room for growth yet? Apologies to those long suffering shareholders for whom such optimism seems just a huge tease. It may be, but the Blis story has a long way to unfold yet from where I'm sitting. We'll see.

simla

12-01-2010, 09:54 PM

In case anyone takes this optimism too much to heart, I remind you that I also think 2010 (at least) will probably be a very challenging year for the world economy, and therefore for any company trading in it.

Cannibal

13-01-2010, 08:19 AM

brucea

13-01-2010, 08:22 AM

Blis is one of the few shares that I follow that is really interesting, but I wont be too worried if the share price does not reach it's prior highs! I think the future prospects for skin creams for acne and skin complaints is very exciting. I still have this hunch (nothing more) that the share price might reach the low 20c region by the end of 2010 - so plan B might be a case of a diet coke at Mission Bay for me instead of the tropical beach setting ....

brucea

13-01-2010, 08:27 AM

[QUOTE=Cannibal;288981]Video here on K12. It's a bit dry but informative. The speaker is from Frutarom
Yes, dry as the proverbial. What Frutarom need is to get this story onto a US or Canadian TV documentary like the NZ version of 60 Minutes (which is on Youtube)

pietrade

13-01-2010, 10:10 AM

pietrade

13-01-2010, 10:16 AM

plan B might be a case of a diet coke at Mission Bay for me instead of the tropical beach setting ....

Woa!!!! you might need to read the info on ASPARTIME in the ihealth links.

emearg

13-01-2010, 11:24 AM

Video here on K12. It's a bit dry but informative. The speaker is from Frutarom.

http://www.ihealthtube.com/aspx/viewvideo.aspx?v=9e1363f72e1bb865

More vids here -

http://www.ihealthtube.com/aspx/search.aspx?s=k12

Better to use the following search as it will reveal all 16 videos about Blis:
http://www.ihealthtube.com/aspx/search.aspx?sp=JOCELYN++MATHERN&displayType=videos

For anybody not interested downloading them all, or unable to because of a slow connection (like me) there are transcripts available for most of the videos. I read about a dozen the other night. The others may be available by now? Sorry, I can't remember exactly where I found them on the site so can't provide a link, but I am sure you will find them if you look hard enough...

Interesting article/blog titled 'GrandDaddy put bugs in my mouth!' here:
http://www.thingstheydontteachyou.com/archives/346

CulturedCare have revealed more of their marketing campaign for their new gum:
http://culturedcare.com/blog/

Text is below for your convience:
<text>
Holistic Pharmacist RoseMarie Pierce talks about BLIS K12 at Victoria Health Show

Come see us at the Victoria Health Show January 16 and 17, 2010!

http://www.canwestshows.com/health/victoria/

You can find us at The Vitamin Shop booth where we’ll be giving away samples of our new CulturedCare Probiotic Gum with BLIS K12 (while they last!). CulturedCare Director of Education - Holistic Pharmacist RoseMarie Pierce - will be a featured speaker at the show. She’ll be talking about Professor John Tagg’s breakthrough research on probiotic BLIS K12, and it’s demonstrated effectiveness at protecting against infections like strep throat.
</end of text>

emearg

15-01-2010, 01:52 PM

CulturedCare has updated their blog and the latest blurb is titled:
BLIS K12 – “Hundreds of times more effective than even most traditional antiseptic throat lozenges”

To jump to it directly follow this link:
http://culturedcare.com/2010/01/14/blis-k12-hundreds-of-times-more-effective-than-even-most-traditional-antiseptic-throat-lozenges/

simla

15-01-2010, 04:45 PM

The gum launch in Canada is looking very active, Emearg. That's good.

And meanwhile, in other markets:

In Taiwan, the Blis Fresh Breath Kit is available on three different sites (gohappy, ftv, pchome, search for 紐西蘭BLIS-K12 布力士口氣清新組 ) at the same price. I had assumed this was "leakage" into the market initially, but that they are all selling for the same price suggests this is an organised release, and maybe it is the breath kit because they are waiting for approval as a food (ie. put it in your mouth), so can't release the others? (But they are available via a couple of .tw seemingly NZ-originated sites in Chinese). Meanwhile, it seems to be listed as an available ingredient at an address in Taiwan (http://www.bioclub.com.tw/epaper/0912/pro077-03.asp) and also another company there http://www.nutrisense.com.tw/eng/products_2.php?gid=35 but that depends on translation.

In Japan, seven fairly organised sites seemed to have Epoca listed - takachanmarket, itempost, touch-express, kusurishop, netsea, albusplus, calamel. (This is only going to get harder now that non-english website names have been okayed!) It has also shown up in a few blogs that appear to list relevant items of news. All up, but given the translation problems, you get the impression it is starting to gain a foothold. The last report said there would be more products in Japan and other North Asian markets soon.

In the US, prices are on the move if you look about. Bioguard is $4 off again in Costco. Theory has it that price reductions are a good way of establishing high volume items. The $4 was off before, but then stopped, but is now back. Also, it used to say 7-10 day delivery time, but that message has now been deleted. LEF's product is now $13.50 for members, and $18 for non-members, and I think it used to be $8 for both for a while maybe? All the US products seem to be widely available, but seem to have attracted only two or three reviews between them where I was looking - all positive but brief.

In NZ, Blis shows up on lots of pharmacy sites, and seems to be available anywhere. Presumably we expect marketing to resume here, maybe by late autumn.

It is hard to say what all that adds up to. But it is maybe signs of a product that is post-release in some places and has started the process of finding it's position in the market? Does all this add up to strong growth at this stage, or just quiet progress? We can't really tell. I suspect it depends how much active marketing/advertising is going on, which we cannot tell from a distance. At this stage, Costco is looking the best bet for volume sales, but we have not heard whether it will be carried nationwide, which would help us judge how successful it is there.

emearg

16-01-2010, 08:56 PM

The listing on the Costco website ( http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11496779 ) has been updated. It now has a link titled 'Watch Product Video'

It links to a page that has four sections:
TV Commercial (the 'Defence' commercial that was mentioned on here a few months back)
Image Gallery
FAQ
Clinical Research

Is this a sign that Costco is happy with the BioGuard sales so far and is increasing its marketing?

We still haven't had any word on a US wide rollout...

simla

16-01-2010, 09:22 PM

I'm not sure the video link implies a lot, as other products have it, and it is no huge commitment from anyone to link to a few existing images (but it must have taken some work anyway.) However, I liked the display tray in the image gallery there. It seems to hold 24 boxes, suggesting a 6 pack doesn't last long in a normal sales situation, which may imply it is turning over. Also, as the main outlet is Costco, the existence of a display tray may mean that it is in a featured-product situation maybe?

I also liked the emphasis on blue in the display tray. Here's what one site says on the "Marketing Psychology of Color":

"Ask people their favorite color and a clear majority will say blue. Much of the world is blue (skies, seas). Seeing the color blue actually causes the body to produce chemicals that are calming ... Over the ages blue has become associated with steadfastness, dependability, wisdom and loyalty (note how many uniforms are blue)."

Meanwhile, the packet itself has a lot of yellow/orange:

"Yellow can be quickly overpowering if over-used, but used sparingly in the just the right place it can be an effective tool in marketing to greater sales. Some shades of yellow are associated with cowardice; but the more golden shades with the promise of better times."

emearg

17-01-2010, 09:57 AM

Yup, but it suggests a couple of things to me:
1) A decision to pull the product hasn't been made.
2) A little more time has been spent creating the link, uploading the video, pics etc. Perhaps customers wanted more information? Perhaps Costco/Imagenetix think the extra info will help increase sales?

All in all I see this as a good sign rather than a bad sign.

Wishful thinking maybe...

simla

17-01-2010, 10:21 AM

That's a really good point, Emearg. If they don't go nationwide, will the product be dropped completely from Costco as the only obvious alternative - that is, is it all or nothing? I'm inclined to agree with you that this would show it is not being dropped. So, yeah, logically this might show it will be extended. There might be a half-way house if production isn't of high enough volume yet.

I wonder if someone else feels the same way? Imagenetix's share price is going up just at present: http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=IAGX.OB#chart1:symbol=iagx.ob;range=3m;i ndicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcva lues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

Chippie

17-01-2010, 10:24 PM

The listing on the Costco website ( http://www.costco.com/Browse/Product.aspx?Prodid=11496779 ) has been updated. It now has a link titled 'Watch Product Video'

Is this a sign that Costco is happy with the BioGuard sales so far and is increasing its marketing?

We still haven't had any word on a US wide rollout...

This has to be good news and indicate the initial trial has gone okay.

simla

18-01-2010, 11:11 AM

emearg

18-01-2010, 12:39 PM

Wouldn't it be helpful if that facebook chappie asked the obvious questions: how's it selling, are people coming back for more, is it being advertised. He could say why he was asking, as it might not be hard to guess. We're happy that he's asking questions.

Which FaceBook chappie are you referring to? I have looked at the CulturedCare FaceBook page but can't see anything new? Can you provide a link please?

simla

18-01-2010, 01:16 PM

May not be facebook when I look closer. http://bioguardinfo.blogspot.com/2010/01/bioguard-4-off.html http://bioguardinfo.blogspot.com/2009/12/updates.html

emearg

18-01-2010, 05:33 PM

Wouldn't it be helpful if that facebook chappie asked the obvious questions: how's it selling, are people coming back for more, is it being advertised. He could say why he was asking, as it might not be hard to guess. We're happy that he's asking questions.

You sound like a man with questions Simla! Perhaps YOU should ask Jessica Rabbit for answers?

It looks like the CulturedCare Twitter follower thingee has run out of steam. It has been been hovering around 490 followers for the past three days.

I wonder if they will pull anything new out of their hat any time soon?

I wonder if their product can actually be sold in Canada yet? Blis/Frutatrom were expecting K12 it to be approved in Dec 2009 but perhaps it hasn't been? Is that what is delaying the launch? I emailed CulturedCare late last week with this very question, but have yet to hear back. I don't expect to if the news is bad as publicly admitting they can't sell the product yet could be damaging to their campaign.

simla

19-01-2010, 08:08 PM

emearg

20-01-2010, 01:01 PM

http://drsinatra.net/uploadedImages/Sinatra/Products/Supplements/Center/Product_Image/ear_nose_throat.jpg

Doesn't mention Blis anywhere, except the product code is BL12: http://drsinatra.net/Products2.aspx?ProductID=BL12

Nicely found Simla! It is interesting that none of the other doctors associated with Healthy Directions are currently selling this product, or any product with a Blis probiotic in them. I wonder if that will change?

I've listened to an hour long interview with Tagg that a Canadian radio station did a few days ago. It is pretty interesting. A few new things, the most significant being that Tagg has started a study on introducing Blis K12 to women in the late stages of pregnancy so that the new babies adopt the good bacteria in the first few days of life. I gather this is done by the mothers having a healthy population of K12 and sharing it with the baby through the mothers spit. Mother spits while talking (as we all do to some extent) or what not and the baby breaths in air full of their mothers saliva.
http://www.lisalive.info/archives/jan15/stream.swf

Tagg is obviously passionate about this stuff, and for such a brainy guy he is very good at articulating complex topics in an easy to understand and quite entertaining way. He is an excellent Blis ambassador in my opinion.

CulturedCare have also posted the second part of their video interview with Tagg. I will watch this later today.
http://culturedcare.com/2010/01/19/part-2-probiotics-for-your-mouth-john-tagg-strep-and-the-blis-k12-story/

simla

20-01-2010, 01:37 PM

Pregnant women? Wow seems too small a word!

Cannibal

20-01-2010, 05:38 PM

Interesting statistic time.

Estimated number of visits for www.costco.com (http://www.costco.com/)
1,264,158 visits per day

Now if one in a thousand visitors bought Blis that is 1,200 sales a day...

http://www.statbrain.com/ Have a play - it's fun.

emearg

20-01-2010, 06:09 PM

Thanks Cannibal. That is a cool link!

Costco has about a tenth the number of visits as Amazon or Ebay.

FaceBook has 73 million.

Blis.co.nz has 137 which is about 137 more than I was expecting!!

Costco could make a big difference to the success of Imagenetix and Blis...

winner69

20-01-2010, 07:28 PM

Blis.co.nz has 137 which is about 137 more than I was expecting!!

Costco could make a big difference to the success of Imagenetix and Blis...

Surely you and simla visit everyhour so that makes up most of the visits .... just having you on

emearg

20-01-2010, 07:47 PM

Surely you and simla visit everyhour so that makes up most of the visits .... just having you on

That would only be 48 visits as neither of us sleep (a bit like Jack off 24) an I don't think that is most! Some but not most!!

Hehe, I'm just having YOU on as I have no idea if Simla sleeps....

simla

20-01-2010, 08:16 PM

Sorry, I nodded off for a while with my hand resting on the reload button for some site or other...

brucea

20-01-2010, 10:06 PM

After listening to the Canadian radio interview on that link it has confirmed my view that a big challenge for Blis is to educate the general public who have little understanding about the natural microflora in the mouth and who may associate the term "strep" with disease rather than the "good bacteria" that Blis K12 represents. I think the parallel with yogurt is a good one though, as most people would be aware yogurt is a live culture and are comfortable with that concept. The toothpaste and mouthwash companies through their big budget advertising have successfully created a misconception in the public mind that oral bacteria are "bad" and must be eliminated, although few of their products do that very successfully despite claims about "barriers", "24 hour protection" and other buzz words. The use of Blis K12 seems to me to be a natural way of restoring a healthy oral microflora - in conjunction with regular brushing, flossing and avoiding sugary foods. Maybe the association of Blis K12 with New Zealand could be linked into our "clean and green" image campaign?

Cannibal

21-01-2010, 10:16 AM

Not sure that I agree. There is a huge volume of information about the benefits of "good bugs" as evidenced with these few quotes that I dredged up:

"The amount of data and information that there is on probiotics and the fact that they can and do have an ability to deliver health benefits [is one of the drivers behind the popularity of probiotics],"

"The global probiotics market is expected to be worth US$ 32.6 billion by 2014, with the Europe and Asia accounting for nearly 42% and 30% of the total revenues respectively. The global market is expected to record a CAGR of 12.6% from 2009 to 2014."

"From Kellogg’s to Kraft to NextFoods, manufacturers add healthy ‘bugs’ to everything from cereal to fruit juice. Practically non-existent just a few years ago, probiotic foods and beverages have finally taken off in the United States — and it's about time. For years, Americans have lagged behind their European and Asian counterparts in both their acceptance and consumption of probiotics. But the combination of a high incidence of digestive problems in the United States, an increasing willingness to discuss these issues openly, and a growing interest in functional foods has finally created a market ripe for probiotic food and beverage development and sales."

"Since 2003, the global probiotics market has more than doubled in value terms, and is currently rising by almost 15% per annum."

brucea

21-01-2010, 10:50 AM

Re Cannibal's comments, yes I totally agree about the rising popularity of probiotics and there is wide acceptance about the benefits of yogurt - the point I was making was the association people have with the word "strep" and sore throats. John Tagg's explanation how this works is excellent so the companies promoting the product will no doubt exploit this. His studies with mothers passing on the K12 strain to their newly born infants is VERY interesting - could be a potential market in this field alone. Many people would be surprised about the fact that there are more bacteria in the mouth than what a person has cells in their body! And the majority doing an excellent job at protecting us!

brucea

21-01-2010, 09:45 PM

Continuing along the yogurt theme.... I see that Meadowfresh have released a new yogurt called Pre-bio containing "natural prebiotics and probiotics" - let's hope one day we see a yogurt on the market containing Blis K12!

simla

25-01-2010, 04:45 PM

Both BLT and ALF are currently selling for around 11 cents in a curious coincidence.

The two companies have very different numbers of issued shares, which would seem to have implications on future profit requirements if the share prices are to grow together at the same PE. Presumably ALF shareholders are also hoping for a profit from buying the Hanover assets at a discount, and I dare say they have quantified that in their minds in maximum cents per share.

Obvious questions: Assuming each company succeeds in its objectives, when might that happen for each of them? And what future growth prospects might be then available for each?

Two very different value propositions that the market can only express in a price. Currently both shares have the same price, but the shares themselves seem to be totally different in character. Literally incomparable, perhaps? No doubt people are hoping both will be profitable.

Cannibal

25-01-2010, 05:15 PM

Incomparable in my opinion. I know which I would rather hold too...

Interesting - two sales just went through - some BLT at 11.2 cents and some BLTPA at 265 cents. The latter is the equivalent of paying 10.5 cents with the added bonus of the dividend. Go figure.

I would have thought that it was time for them to update the shareholders by now. So many things must have happened since their last update..

emearg

25-01-2010, 08:46 PM

Incomparable in my opinion. I know which I would rather hold too...

As long as you prefer BLT then I agree with both points!

I would have thought that it was time for them to update the shareholders by now. So many things must have happened since their last update..

They're not big on updating us unless something substantial happens, and even then the update is often days/weeks after we have found out by doing our own research e.g. Costco

I think the lack of timely updates from Blis is one of the main reasons why this thread is so active...

emearg

26-01-2010, 07:34 AM

It looks like the Health Store in Australia is stocking the Blis range of retail products:
http://www.shop4products.com.au/search.php?q=blis+k12&log=1&image.x=0&image.y=0

Is this new? I wasn't aware that Blis products were available in Aussi? I got a Google Alert today so I assume it is reasonably new?

If this is new it might suggest an Australian distributor has been appointed?

simla

26-01-2010, 07:59 AM

I don't think so, Emearg. I can't get the links on that page to "go to the store" for some reason. But they say "Health Store", which is probably this http://www.naturalhealthsupplements.com.au/en/c/BLIS_Bad_Breath_Treatment which mentions a NZ address and photo in About Us, and sells Blis in various languages in various country domains. Compare the photo in About Us with this site, for example. http://www.newzealand.vn/about_us.php?language=en or http://www.shop-new-zealand.cn/tw/cp194/5110 and in Canada http://www.naturalhealthsupplements.ca/en/cp/Bad_Breath_Treatment all of which have been there for a while, I believe.

Someone is very enterprising to do this and I wonder what volumes they achieve. Blis is available around the world via a long list of sites doing interesting things like this. For example, the Animal Parade Tooth Fairy is available on quite a few .uk sites. And Bioguard in Vietnam, http://corel.vn/product/detail/66037/10-hop-bioguard-advanced-probiotic-protection-75-melt-tabs-exclusively-with-blis-k12.html

You have to wonder if all this web site action doesn't add up to something even though you can't quite categorise it as a launch in another country.

Cannibal

26-01-2010, 08:54 AM

I wasn't aware that Blis products were available in Aussi? I got a Google Alert today so I assume it is reasonably new?

If this is new it might suggest an Australian distributor has been appointed?

Blis has been available in Oz for ages.

http://www.breezecare.com.au/aus/index.html
http://www.naturalhealthsupplements.com.au/en/c/BLIS_Bad_Breath_Treatment
http://www.shop4products.com.au/product/Blis-K12-Throatguard-Daily-Vanilla-Throat-Lozenges-30-Lozenges.html

Cannibal

26-01-2010, 08:59 AM

As long as you prefer BLT then I agree with both points!

I do prefer BLT.

Disclosure - I bought a bucket load at 4 cents.

emearg

26-01-2010, 10:58 AM

Blis has been available in Oz for ages.

http://www.breezecare.com.au/aus/index.html
http://www.naturalhealthsupplements.com.au/en/c/BLIS_Bad_Breath_Treatment
http://www.shop4products.com.au/product/Blis-K12-Throatguard-Daily-Vanilla-Throat-Lozenges-30-Lozenges.html

Sorry, I meant the Blis branded products not the rebranded bad breath product. The two other links are the ones mentioned above. Have they both been around for ages? If Simla is right then this doesn't warrant any excitement.

How big is your idea of a bucket Cannibal? I bought some at 4.2 cents but don't know if it was a bucket load, or perhaps a rubbish-bin full?

Cannibal

26-01-2010, 11:07 AM

You tell me how big yours is and I'll show you mine...

emearg

26-01-2010, 12:01 PM

I was just joking and as I don't need to know I will say no thanks!

I am hoping I don't have a rubbish bin full of Blis shares!

Cannibal

26-01-2010, 01:12 PM

Heh - nice answer. I bought mine when I was new to share trading and the purchase was 10 x more than I had ever outlain. I didn't sleep for 2 days!

I liked the look of the product and I loved the look of their business partners and distribution chain. Nothing since has changed my mind. I think that we are in for a very profitable next announcement and lots more to come.

emearg

26-01-2010, 03:21 PM

CulturedCare is continuing to drip feed their videos with Prof Tagg. Part three is available:
http://ow.ly/10kNl

Another GoogleAlert pointed me to a Nutraceutical Corporation publication. It came out in August 09. It can be found here:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&q=http://www.solaray.net/new/pdfs/WN%25200909.pdf&ct=ga&cd=zYFnGg1x8Us&usg=AFQjCNGFtoLBZ_B_UKobVUiE1YyjWW8Zvg

It is all about Cold Defence. On page two in has a blurb about the VegLife Ear, Nose and Throat Shield.

All of page 4 is devoted to it. They use phrases like 'Triple Immunity Shield!' and '3 in 1 Immune Formula with Probiotics'

As always it is good to see additional advertising by the makers of new Blis products.

I ordered some of this product back in October. The place (vitaminlife) I ordered it from was out of stock. It was on back order for a while but never came in. I ordered it again 10 days ago and after being on back order for a couple of days it is on its way.

The question that comes to mind is had they not made any of the product by the time I ordered and therefore weren't able to fill my order or had it been selling so well they couldn't keep up with demand?

The first option seems unlikely unless they are really bad at planning! To market the stuff in August but not have any available in October because production had yet to begin seems like a reason for somebody to be out of a job!

The second possibility is obviously my preferred one but may just be wishful thinking. Maybe it is correct because they expected demand to be very light and it was better than expected but nothing for us to get excited about? I think the chances of every finding out are about nil, but very strong growth in the second half for Blis may be a good indicator.

If any of you have friends/relatives or whatever in the states it would be excellent if you ask them to keep an eye out for advertising about Blis K12 or M18 products. It would be great to know if they are being exposed to any advertising (print, radio, TV etc). We are so far away from the US here it is really hard to figure out how much the average Joe might be reading/hearing/seeing.

simla

27-01-2010, 12:00 PM

Very possibly they just didn't do export at the time, but are now doing so. A lot of US companies seem to me to take quite long term views, and think nothing of building up momentum over several years, although I couldn't say if this is the case here.

The VegLife blurb was from here http://www.nutraceutical.com/new/new_products.cfm and K12 was in the September and October links, but not otherwise I think. I can't find any links to these files, so I think it must be either physically posted out or linked to in emails perhaps. It really seems to be aimed at the health store owners as far as I can see, and just alerts them to new products, although it is definitely designed to catch the eye so maybe is to be printed as leaflets for the shops - it is called "Free Shopper Guide"?

Totally agree it would be nice to know what marketing was going on.

emearg

28-01-2010, 07:50 AM

Very possibly they just didn't do export at the time, but are now doing so.

That is a possibility Simla but I would bet my life they were doing exports! Check out the following for more details:
https://www.vitaminlife.com/file_include-exec/file/cust_help#shipping

I paid my money, and then I received automated updates for about 5 weeks. The first few said it was out of stock, and then the rest said it was on back order. At the end of it being on backorder for a month my money was refunded, as they advised it would be. I had the option of cancelling the order at any time.

It was a pretty smooth operation all things considered, and that is why I was happy to place another order this month.

Cannibal

28-01-2010, 08:29 AM

by the way did you guys know there is a story about Blis in the Dec/Jan issue of Unlimited magazine? page 101

I'm new to this thread so I don't know if you've discussed this earlier. If you haven't seen it I can scan it although I'm not sure where I can upload it. I don't have a photobucket account but I could open one

It is here - http://unlimited.co.nz/unlimited.nsf/money/blis-technologies-on-the-up

brucea

28-01-2010, 10:05 AM

Thanks for the link guys - I have just ordered some Adult's Dental Care Probiotic Lozenges with M18 from the VitaminLife web site. I figure this is a good investment - if it prevents one cavity alone this would have more than paid for itself! And as I have said before, I think there are exciting times ahead with further Blis products in the field of skin infection treatment.

simla

28-01-2010, 12:43 PM

A recent financial study has revealed the surprising fact that booming revenues for Blis has in fact all been caused by product sales to Blis shareholders via US manufacturers. The study also revealed that once dividends were factored in, no net money had changed hands at all...

Just joking. Nice we're all enjoying the product.

emearg

28-01-2010, 12:59 PM

I bought three boxes. You can do the sums if you like, but I don't think it will make a big difference to the dividend YOU receive Simla! :-)

Normally I don't directly support the companies I own shares in! e.g. I don't buy RBD products as I don't think much of their pizza, chicken or coffee.

The three boxes costed NZ $43 landed. 150 lozenges in total. The Throat Guard I have been buying is between $15 and $20 for 30 lozenges. Based on that alone it wasn't a difficult decision. And when you look at what is in each lozenge the VegLife product looks like even better value!

brucea

28-01-2010, 01:57 PM

Just joking. Nice we're all enjoying the product.

I wonder when M18 will become available in NZ? Interesting though that I can buy products on the web from overseas which end up cheaper than buying in NZ despite exchange rate and postage! By the way Bioguard is available through Amazon ...

Silverlight

28-01-2010, 03:06 PM

BLT could be in for significant drop in share price if no new buyers enter the market. A lot of downside pressure on the orderbook.

Buyers

100000 0.08
100000 0.06
35000 0.041

Sellers

0.114 218000
0.115 36000
0.12 800
0.12 33500
0.12 50000
0.121 30000
0.125 100000
0.13 35500
0.15 1400
0.168 86000
0.17 10000

Cannibal

28-01-2010, 03:23 PM

Interesting viewpoint. It is an illiquid stock but the resistance at 11 cents has been solid for over three months.
We shall see.

simla

28-01-2010, 05:15 PM

The market is certainly in a panicky mood all round, and all over the world too. I'm surprised this didn't happen a few months ago. I've certainly remarked before this that 2010 will very likely be a challenging year.

If so, there is no reason why Blis shouldn't get involved in the turmoil. But ... I also think that Blis's growth should be able to win over that turmoil in the end. However, the results only come out occasionally and BLT may well be going cheaply from time to time between bursts of optimism.

I think BLT watchers will have plenty to test their intentions over the next couple of years. The better the results, the greater the volatility for BLT, if BLT is on an up trend while the market is generally going down?

simla

28-01-2010, 06:32 PM

http://www.truebotanica.com/images/ProductPhotos/TrueDefenseKids_Flow_Chart.jpg

Meanwhile, another product for you guys to buy. True Defense For Kids TM. It seems to be a slightly different product format, so that's a development. Adult version in March. http://www.truebotanica.com/store/product/TDR1001/TrueDefenseforKids.aspx

emearg

28-01-2010, 07:45 PM

BLT could be in for significant drop in share price if no new buyers enter the market. A lot of downside pressure on the orderbook.

For traders of Blis stock this could be a worry. For long term holders who are comfortable with where Blis is going it shouldn't be too much of a concern. Short term volatility is pretty normal with thinly traded penny dreadful shares.

Perhaps it can be seen as a buying opportunity?

Any one nervous about short term volatility should buy a nice stable share like Telecom </cough>

emearg

28-01-2010, 07:59 PM

Meanwhile, another product for you guys to buy. True Defense For Kids TM. It seems to be a slightly different product format, so that's a development. Adult version in March. http://www.truebotanica.com/store/product/TDR1001/TrueDefenseforKids.aspx

I'm a little old, but might consider the Adult version...

The website is excellent. Lots of interesting information for readers.

What interested me the most is in the FAQ and follows:
What foods can I mix TD with?
TD can be mixed into a small amount of water; milk; soy milk; yoghurt and other dairy products.

All things considered it seems probable they have tested the efficacy of mixing the powder with the above substances and must received a tick.

emearg

28-01-2010, 08:01 PM

Updated product list...

K12:
Natures Plus - Adult's Ear, Nose & Throat Lozenges with K12 Probiotics -- Tropical Cherry
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productdetail.asp?criteria=search&searchVar=49254&productnumber=49254&category=28

Natures Plus - Animal Parade® Children's Chewable Inner Ear Support
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productdetail.asp?criteria=search&searchVar=29949&productnumber=29949&category=12

Swanson - Ultra Oral Probiotic
http://www.swansonvitamins.com/SWU519/ItemDetail?n=0

Imagenetix - Bioguard
http://bioguardhealth.com/

Solaray - Oral Flora
http://www.smartbomb.com/slr12698.html

VegLife - Ear, Nose & Throat Shield
http://www.vitaminlife.com/product-exec/product_id/57807/nm/Ear+Nose+and+Throat+Shield

LEF - Advanced Oral Hygiene
http://search.lef.org/cgi-src-bin/MsmGo.exe?grab_id=0&page_id=443&query=k12&hiword=k12

Biogenesis - Pro Flora Oral Health Chewables
http://www.bio-genesis.com/productpages/pro-flora-oral-health/pro-flora-oral-health.html

Epoca
http://www.takachanmarket.com/products/detail.php?product_id=17325

Ear, Nose & Throat Defense
http://drsinatra.net/Products2.aspx?ProductID=BL12

True Botanicas - True Defense for Kids™
http://www.truebotanica.com/store/product/TDR1001/TrueDefenseforKids.aspx

KForce

Aktiv-k12

Blis Throat Guard Daily
http://blis.co.nz/?go=Consumers&c=BLIS-Products&p=Throat-Guard-Daily

Blis Throat Guard Boost
http://blis.co.nz/?go=Consumers&c=BLIS-Products&p=Throat-Guard-Boost

Blis Travel Guard
http://blis.co.nz/?go=Consumers&c=BLIS-Products&p=Travel-Guard

Blis Bio Restore
http://blis.co.nz/?go=Consumers&c=BLIS-Products&p=Bio-Restore

Blis Fresh Breath Kit
http://blis.co.nz/?go=Consumers&c=BLIS-Products&p=Fresh-Breath-Kit

Blis Rapid Eze Gargle
http://blis.co.nz/?go=Consumers&c=BLIS-Products&p=Rapid-EZE-Gargle

M18:
Natures Plus - Animal Parade® Tooth Fairy™ Children’s Chewable Dental Probiotic
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productdetail.asp?criteria=search&searchVar=29948&productnumber=29948&category=12

Natures Plus - Adult’s Dental Care Probiotic Lozenges - Peppermint
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productdetail.asp?criteria=search&searchVar=4383&productnumber=4383&category=22

Include K12 and/or M18:
Natures Plus - Whole Food Total Body Cleanse with Açai (Vegetarian Capsules)
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productdetail.asp?productNumber=1120

Natures Plus Ultra Lipoic™ Bi-Layered Mini-Tabs & Tablets
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productdetail.asp?criteria=search&searchVar=5224&productnumber=5224&category=29
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productdetail.asp?criteria=search&searchVar=5220&productnumber=5220&category=29

Natures Plus Ultra Probiotics Vegetarian Capsules
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productdetail.asp?productNumber=4385

Hopefully around the 10th of next month I will be able to added the CulturedCare gum to the list.

simla

28-01-2010, 08:32 PM

Thanks for putting in all the links, Emearg. Really good idea.

The LEF one doesn't seem to work for me, perhaps instead: http://www.lef.org/Vitamins-Supplements/Item01300/Advanced-Oral-Hygiene.html

I must say that it is pretty impressive when you load them all up in tabs and then flip through them. And not only that, but think of all the negotiating and manufacturing work that had to happen for each and every one of them. And marketing work.

emearg

28-01-2010, 09:49 PM

Thanks Simla, I have updated my list here so next time it will be updated.

Frutarom have been very busy selling the ingredient, and no doubt Blis have been busy supporting it.

If you have looked at the very long manufacturers list on VitaminLife.com you get an idea of how many manufacturers/brands may one day include K12 and/or M18. That said, we know they are focusing on the 50 biggest, but I am sure they will be receptive to the smaller players as well.

Anybody fancy taking a stab at the 2nd half sales revenue?

brucea

28-01-2010, 10:31 PM

Thanks Emearg for the great work you have done with your lists .... however by the time I end up buying all the new overseas products containing K12 I will need to sell my Blis shares to pay for them ..... seriously though I am a long term holder of Blis shares and agree the recent volatility could represent an opportunity to top up ..... and as for Telecom shares ...(boring, boring)

simla

29-01-2010, 11:23 AM

Anybody fancy taking a stab at the 2nd half sales revenue?

Sorry, Emearg. The range of possible answers just gets wider and wider. All the news is promising though.

Cannibal

29-01-2010, 12:14 PM

C'mon Simla - you can do better than that. How about a range and the reasoning behind it please?

I think that it is a given that the numbers will be good - the only question is how good? The last numbers were based on a very limited product range and nascent distribution channels and the managed to break even. Now they have an extensive product range and a massive number of mature distribution partners pretty much worldwide.

emearg

29-01-2010, 03:16 PM

Here is an article titled 'Mom's Gingivitis Leads to Baby's Death':
www.momlogic.com/2010/01/moms_gingivitis_leads_to_babys_death.php

I recently mentioned that Prof Tagg is doing a study on the use of K12 in pregnant women at the later stages of pregnancy. It seems to me that using K12 and M18 for the entire pregnancy would be advantageous for pregnant women to avoid Gingivitis and other oral health issues.

I wonder if we will see a product released focussing on this potential benefit in their marketing?

Mothers-to-be who may not be very interested in taking probiotics for their own health may be far more willing to take them if is about the health of their unborn babies.

simla

29-01-2010, 03:55 PM

Here's why I think there is little point in speculating. Consider the following range of complete guesses that may or may not seem reasonable:

1. Costco, sitting in high footcount stores ready for customers to grab:

50 stores sell 20 bottles a day for 180 days, BLT gets $1 a bottle = $180k
50 stores sell 50 bottles a day for 180 days, BLT gets $2.50 a bottle = $1.2m
50 stores sell 100 bottles a day for 180 days, BLT gets $2.50 a bottle = $2.3m
Other 250 stores sell 50 a day for 90 days, BLT gets $3 a bottle = $3.4m

2. Other products sitting in lower volume stores presumably, or internet:

12 products sell 20 a day each, BLT gets $1.50 a bottle for 180 days = $65k
12 products sell 150 a day for 180 days, BLT get $3 = $970k
5 products sell 400 a day, 7 sell 30 a day for 180 days, BLT gets $2 = $800k
12 products sell 200 a day, BLT gets $3 for 180 days = $1.3m

3. Japan

No information available at all, but it is on several serious websites, actual shops unknown. But being near people is a fact of life in Japan and people are very hygiene conscious:

Worst case maybe $100k?
Best case maybe $600k?

4. Sales of M18 or K12 to set up new products we have yet to hear of maybe: $0k-$400k?

5. Research revenue: $300k?

6. NZ & other : $100k to $400k?

Range therefore: maybe, $745k - $8.3m! These figures are NOT my forecasts, but just examples of how modelling assumptions really leads nowhere at present as we have no norms to measure against. Great to dream of big numbers though.

As I say, pointless speculation as we have absolutely no data to work from. The above is nothing but guesswork of random possibilities. Blis is expanding in products, but we have no information what any given brand is capable of.

We can surely assume two things though: Costco won't waste high customer count on products that don't sell; and companies aren't going to go to the trouble of manufacturing products that they only expect to sell 365 of a year (i.e one bottle a day).

Corrections to maths etc welcome as always. I wouldn't rely on these guesses if I was you!

neopoleII

29-01-2010, 07:48 PM

out of 50 costco stores i would guess that maybe 20 or 30 bliss products are being sold per day across the entire store group. bliss is still an unknown product to the general public.
and then, each bliss product sale is a months supply.
but i do think bliss is getting more than $1 per sale.

not until the masses know about bliss will we see 1000 unique individuals (50 shops x 20 products ) a day buying bliss products...... which = 30,000 people a month or 180,000 unique individuals per 180 days.
just go to any health shop and ask what /if any product is going out the door at 20 units per day.
if any are they will be mainstream products.

simple research is to hang around a heath shop and watch how fast and how many products are going past the till.
bliss has a long way to go, but i do believe that bliss will become mainstream.

its products are proven but not yet in mainstream products.

which makes me wonder, ....... why hasn't colgate or macleans taken up bliss?

toothpaste today contains whitening products, anti plaque, anti bad breath, desencitizers , enamel strengtheners, 24hr protection and other stuff, yet k12 or m18 is left to the obscure health shops or internet shops.
personally i think blt should try and go all hog and get FDA recognition and then hit the mainstream market with a global corporation
otherwise we will be left to the misery of slowly converting the masses to enter health shops and buy niche products.

simla

29-01-2010, 09:44 PM

Your caution is very well grounded, of course. But I hope things are a bit better than that. If $1 were the right figure, then sales of 20 Blis products a day would be gross revenue of $20 a day, or $7300 pa.

I think we have to assume that Blis have gone to all this trouble, and so have all the manufacturers, because the scale is worth the effort. But, yes, when will that be?

simla

29-01-2010, 09:53 PM

All these new uses of K12 are fascinating, Emearg. I wonder though whether the future for Blis doesn't lie not in the health benefits so much as the money value of the health benefits? "K12 - your doctor when you can't afford a doctor", or "M18 - your dentist when you can't afford a dentist". Of course, that's an overstated claim. But I wonder if a toned down version of that won't be the point in the end? In NZ, we have a good public health system. But getting sick in places like the US can be literally bankrupting for many, even if only with the flu for some. And more than a few toothpaste ads have had sentences like, "going to the dentist can be expensive." Just a thought.

Nevertheless, the ongoing discovery of new benefits is fascinating. I wonder if it is as simple as that salivarius is a common body inhabitant BECAUSE the body has a lot of uses for it?

simla

29-01-2010, 10:15 PM

And we shouldn't forget the internet sales, which is probably big at Costco as well as everywhere else.

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/clay-dillow/culture-buffet/amazon-new-wal-mart "Analyst Jim Friedland wrote in a research note: "In our view, Amazon is a next-generation Wal-Mart, and we believe the company's focus on lower prices and a superior shopping experience versus online and offline competitors will result in substantial share gains over time."

Or 2007, http://money.cnn.com/2007/05/14/news/economy/online_retailing/ "NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- As more American consumers forego crowded malls for the convenience of online shopping, total Internet-related sales are forecast to jump 19.1 percent to $174.5 billion in 2007"

Again 2007, http://www.ecommercenews.org/e-commerce-news-010/0277-101507-ecommerce-news.html "Costco's online sales grow to $1.22 billion a year".

Or now, http://www.geekwithlaptop.com/online-shopping-buoyant-in-uk-despite-recession "online shopping in the UK have actually risen 25 percent month on month which amounts to 11 percent more than the same period last year. It seems people are using Wi-Fi to do the walking online instead of traipsing round high street stores for their seasonal shopping sprees. In November alone, the UK spent a whopping £5.3 billion on online purchases."

Blis has achieved a pretty good presence online. It's hard for us to know what effect that is having though.

emearg

29-01-2010, 10:48 PM

The first question as you guys have confused me (it doesn't take much) is are you using NZ dollars or US dollars in the above posts?

More interestingly, my second question is how did Blis earn an extra $350,000 from the US last half?

I suspect most if not all of it was through Frutatrom.

Two options for discussion here. Either Blis sold large volumes (let us say 350,000 doses at $1 each) or a smaller volume at a higher price (let us say 100,000 doses at $3.50)

Which possibility seems more likely considering how new the various products were? How large would sales to the various manufacturers have had to have been to allow them to adequately build and maintain inventories before and after initial sales?

To me it seems unlikely that 350,000 doses would have been sold. This seems especially unlikely if you think NeopoleII's estimates for sales at large retail stores are correct. It also seems unlikely if you believe the estimate I have put together.

So, I think it is reasonable to assume the volume was lower but the price paid to Blis was higher.

With the BioGuard product selling for $15 (after rebate) to $19 US it doesn't seem unreasonable that $3 US of that would come to Blis. A similar amount to Frutatrom. A larger amount to Imagenetix and Costco - perhaps $5 US each?

Blis has signalled that the Costco deal is significant. I think we have to assume everybody is planning on the volumes being reasonably high.

As far as the Costco BioGuard product is concerned we should remember there has been some TV advertisements, some print advertising, some radio interviews and goodness knows what else so I think we can be a little more generous than NeopoleII's estimate.

Personally I think a conservative figure during the winter season would be one dose sold each hour per shop. To me this doesn't seem very optimistic at all considering they are busy shops, they are in the chemist section and they scream out boost your immune system in a time when people are dying from Swine Flu. So for the second half I am suggesting they will sell 50 (shops) * 10 (trading hours) * 180 (days). That is 90,000 units. Multiply that by $4 (3$ US) and we get $360,000

Add internet sales. We have seen the BioGuard product in many (a dozen perhaps) email communications. 86 million members. Do they all get/read the emails? I doubt it. Let us say a quarter do. That is 21.5 million people. Let us assume 1% order the BioGuard product during the current half year. That is 215,000 doses. Am I being too optimistic? Let us cut that in half so only 0.5% of readers order the product. That is 107,500 doses. $430,000

For Blis $800k is very big money from just one product. Is that figure reasonable? I have no real idea if it is too high or too low but jotting down a few numbers is pretty interesting...

emearg

29-01-2010, 11:18 PM

which makes me wonder, ....... why hasn't colgate or macleans taken up bliss?

toothpaste today contains whitening products, anti plaque, anti bad breath, desencitizers , enamel strengtheners, 24hr protection and other stuff, yet k12 or m18 is left to the obscure health shops or internet shops.

In one or two of the recent (last year or so as I recall) communications from Blis they have said they are working on being able to include K12 in toothpaste. As we haven't heard that this work has been completed I think it is fair to assume the work is ongoing.

It seems fair to assume they will be trying to get M18 into toothpaste as well.

The good news is the boffins at Blis seem to be pretty good at this stuff...

simla

30-01-2010, 07:36 AM

Nice line of reasoning, Emearg. But, alas, I fear it still boils down to guessing. Since our guesses are not converging on any sort of result - far from it - I still think it boils down to that we cannot possibly know.

I'm not sure we should necessarily assume toothpaste is still too hard. I've noticed a difference between when Blis says very little and when they state that something might take time.

emearg

30-01-2010, 05:58 PM

Guessing yes, but what I am trying to do by using previous sales figures is to make them educated guesses.

As I recall Simla you were quite keen on estimating the first half and I thought it was slightly pointless. Then I got in on the act. You converted me! As it turned out some of the estimates were pretty accurate.

I will take a stab at an estimate as I asked you all to have a go it doesn't seem right for me not to!

I will break it down like I did for the last half. All in NZ dollars:

US (including Canada) - $1,000,000
Japan - $250,000
Australia $75,000
Ireland - $75,000
Other International sales -$150,000

New Zealand
$50,000

This totals $1,600,000 in sales revenue. This is obviously a big increase over the first half, and a huge increase over previous years but considering how much has changed recently I don't think history should influence my estimates too significantly.

The US figure is approximately three times what was recorded in the first half. I have decided on this figure for the following reasons:

1) It is winter in the US. This is sore throat, cold and flu season. Swine flu is also out there and is/was weighing heavily on a lot of people's minds.

2) Ever increasing web presence of products. While some would say it is easy to put up a website or to list a product I say they are right. Fortunately it will add to sales. There is a big difference between having a product but nobody knowing about it and having it on the web available for purchase. Products on Amazon, Ebay and dozens of more specialised sites isn't going to hurt sales!

3) Costco. Even 50 stores is significant. Their online presence is very significant. 1.25 million visits a day isn't small beer. Some visitors will be buying BioGuard.

4) More and more products coming to market. This means early sales to build inventories, and potentially repeat sales. There are now at least ten products in the US plus the gum in Canada. How many others haven't we found yet or will be released soon and have already resulted in sales to Frutatrom/Blis?

5) Blis K12 brand awareness is growing for consumers and manufacturers. There is now a huge amount of information out there compared with even six months ago in the form of TV ads, videos, articles, blogs, tweets, facebook sites, online retailers etc

6) Existing products will be building brand awareness and sales. Barry has made it clear that this doesn't happen overnight.

7) M18. We currently know of only two products that have it as their primary ingredient but we were told another manufacturer is getting it as well. The formal launch of M18 is happening early this year. Are Frutatrom busy selling it now? I bet they are based on how proactive they were (and still are) with K12 from even before day dot. So, how many other manufacturers are working on a product with M18, and are potentially going to have to build an inventory in this financial half?

8) The probiotics market in general is growing.

Japan is very hard to estimate. But considering they have a population of approximately 128 million my estimate doesn't seem even slightly generous. A hundredth of one percent of the population spending 20 NZ dollars on EPOCA would bring in this figure.

Australia. I wonder how the fresh breath business is going? Have they run down their inventories and are now ordering big? My estimate assumes not.

Ireland is a dog. Poor Ireland. Despite it being winter I don't think sales will be good.

Other International sales. There has been mention of a number of other countries coming on line in this half. Until we hear or find out they have I'm not going to factor them in in any significant way.

New Zealand. Our summer. I am sure some people buy the various products over Summer but I am assuming the sales are relatively insignificant.

This time I won't break down the other income e.g. grants, Nestle, licensing, global consumer company etc, but will simply say it will probably be similar to the first half which was approximately $400,000. Probably a different split but at a guess it will be similar.

So it may be that Blis will bring in approximately 2 million in revenue in the second half. That would mean full year revenue will be approximately 3 million. That would be excellent growth!

It may be that I am estimating too high for some countries and too low for others but that is my stab at it! Let me know what you think...

emearg

30-01-2010, 06:03 PM

I'm not sure we should necessarily assume toothpaste is still too hard.

To be honest I never said that it was too hard. I am sure it is hard but none of this stuff is meant to be easy. It just takes time and the odds are given enough of it they will produce the right result.

I've noticed a difference between when Blis says very little and when they state that something might take time.

Fair enough observation!

I'm just working on the basis that until they tell us it is done it isn't done.

simla

30-01-2010, 09:56 PM

Thanks for that. I don't disagree with a word you say, and indeed my gut guess is 2.5 to 3 full year. But I'm afraid it is very much a guess (based on 2nd half matching 1st half at least, but there being a limit to how much growth can happen.) I agree that we should have fair hopes of second half exceeding first half, so that may (or may not!) set a floor of 2. The big problem lies in how much will come out of the US. Half of your estimate is one single figure, the US estimate.

However, your maths makes the interesting point that there is a chance of non-US sales matching the first half revenue regardless. But it is only a possibility, as your estimates attribute $400,000 to Asia effectively? Again we have no way of knowing how that will turn out either.

The difficulty of estimating this time seems two-fold to me: Costco, and the internet.

Firstly, we are not on the ground counting how many bottles of Bioguard are walking out the door. It's such a simple piece of market data, if we were there, but we don't know it.

But consider these enthusiastic reviews of Costco Seattle: http://www.yelp.com/biz/costco-seattle

"Even if you're not a member, you can use the Pharmacy. And their prescription prices are AWESOME. Another secret: While you are waiting for your prescription, you can eat their delicious food, even if you're not a member!" "I try to stay away from the madness that is Costco" "the crowds are ridiculous, but I've come to grips with the fact that there is no good time to go; there is never ever a lull at Costco." "Every once in a while I think about giving up my Costco membership, but then I find yet another amazing deal on items I use regularly and I can't bring myself to do it" "It's very much a one stop shop for most everything you can think of; I especially enjoy browsing the book, electronics, and software sections - and if you purchase gift cards anyplace else you're truly wasting your time and money." "I love Costco! You can get great passport photos for only $5, pizza slice for $2, gift certificates to places like Starbucks, fancy restaurants, 24-Hour Fitness, for much cheaper than anywhere else. So many great deals! And on the weekends, they always give out free samples, and I fill up on them & then don't have to eat lunch anymore. Am not into the huge crowds though or the long lines at the check out. But everything else is great!" "Word of advice - if you go in a group or even with just one other person, make sure that everyone has a cell phone because if you get lost in Costco you aint never gonna be seen again."

Mind you: "This isnt the first time you've done this to me Costco. WHY OH WHY do you pick up a product, have me fall in love with it, then take it away?". So Bioguard have to earn their place. But they are still selling it, so presumably it is doing so. Further, have you noticed the $4 off has been extended through February, possibly a good sign? They expect to be selling it until then at the least!

If we add the knowledge that Bioguard is now in 24 pack display trays, the potential is there for this stuff to be walking out the door of Costco, if they are displaying it with any prominence. But we just don't know.

The second big question in my mind is the internet. Internet sales seem to compounding by maybe 20% or more per year. So maybe there are big sales going on here. The difficulty is knowing how things are promoted to people arriving on any given site. A lot of the NZ pharmacy sites seem to have Blis links on other pages. And a lot of Costco pages have Bioguard links. And, as for other products, Google returns 436 results just for 'naturesplus "tooth fairy"' and most of them seem to be for real. And that's just one product.

All of which just adds up to a wide range of possible outcomes. My gut feeling of 2.5 to 3 is not particularly strong, it just feels like a perfectly possible result if K12 is proving a saleable proposition in the US. But a whole lot of other results are possible too.

I feel it is different this time because, for the first time, K12 (and M18) are going full on into a very large target market, with presumably a fair amount of marketing power, and are also available in a mass selling environment. It is very hard to know just how effective that will be. The chances must be reasonable. Certainly it will be interesting to see Imagenetix's quarterly results, presumably due in a couple of weeks.

ps. If you doubt the stuff about Costco Seattle, have a look at street view in Google Earth: 4401 4th Ave S, Seattle. Looks big and busy.

emearg

31-01-2010, 09:46 AM

Here is an article about yoghurt being the food of the decade. It is focused on the US:
http://whrefresh.com/2010/01/28/whats-the-food-of-the-decade/

The interesting bit is 'Probiotic yogurts, especially, have been going like gangbusters ever since 2006, when Dannon’s Activia line debuted to the tune of $130 million in first-year sales.'

simla

31-01-2010, 10:29 AM

$130m first-year sales for a single brand of yoghurt? I'll take that.

And Amazon reported sales of $9.52 billion last (Christmas) quarter. Aided by the Kindle no doubt. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100129/ap_on_hi_te/us_earns_amazon

There's no doubt that there's big money out there if the market takes to things. If only we knew if anyone was taking to k12 or M18.

emearg

31-01-2010, 02:58 PM

The population of the US is 308,574,000 people

28% of the population consume yoghurt on a regular basis which is approximately 86.5 million people. All of them need to spend $1.50 to bring in $130 million in revenue.

Alternatively a tenth (8.65 million people) of regular yoghurt eaters need to spend $15 a year to achieve that level of sales.

The scale of the US is huge isn't it! I guess that is why Frutatrom and Blis are devoting much of their energy to this market.

But until GRASsa is gained the scale of the yoghurt, milk, icecream and a few other businesses isn't something we should get too excited about.

brucea

31-01-2010, 03:04 PM

I see that Nestle already sell a product called Nestlé Bliss Yogurt Drink "A mix of Lactobacilus Acidophilus, Bifidobacteria Lactis and Streptococcus Thermophilus which helps promote a healthy bacterial balance and smoother intestinal function". Given their association with Blis, I wonder if in the future we will see a new probiotic yogurt on the market containing Streptococcus salivarius K12 or M18 - now THAT"S the sort of exposure Blis needs ... still it is good to see the word "Streptococcus" associated with a food product!

neopoleII

31-01-2010, 05:26 PM

interesting discussion the last few days.

how many folks here have tried bliss products?
how many of you buy bliss products the second, third times ..... regularly?
i tried the k12 once, i "seemed" to feel better, and breath "seemed" fresher,
but then i was actively buying k12, and actively trying to look after myself better and being concious of results.
trouble is ........ once you feel fine, other things become more important, and k12 goes to the back of the mind.
i know a lady who was a regular users for about 18 months, i spoke to her recently and asked her if she still uses it, her reply was a "oh yeah....(searching her memory) not for a long time........""
this seems to be the case with lots of people..... re NZ sales.
the stuff works, but it has to be used with regular dicipline.
with most folks dont do.
so k12 and m18 has to be added to mainstream products, so people dont know they a conciously being safeguarded.

a few posts back it was mentioned that costco sell pizza slices for $2.
so sprinkle k12 and m18 on pizza slices and sell "heathy pizza" for $3 a slice.
or any other take away food for that matter.
recently all fastfood outlets have been hammered by the media because of the unhealthy issues surrounding fastfoods, to take a new angle they could all add k12 and m18 to help protect the masses of young folks who consume fast foods.

the problem here is ........ no FDA approval as a standard food additive..................

people want things easy, k12 and m18 could be easy, but at this stage, it is only sold to those who actively seek it or a actively recomended it.

my posts might read like im the party pooper, but i want this to succeed as much as the next investor, and i KNOW it will, because we have turned a corner and awareness it growing, and as it grows it will compound exponentially.
its just the timeframe that is the question.
and the reasons and attitudes of the purchacers.

fungus pudding

31-01-2010, 07:55 PM

simla

31-01-2010, 07:56 PM

Not a party pooper, NeopoleII. The point of this group is to discuss things. It wouldn't be much use if we all agreed.

I think the question we have really been discussing here recently is, how far down the bulk-market road have Blis reached?

For myself, I think it possible they have already gone quite a way, but we can't know. Chewing gum is already one bulk road opening, and I suspect that Costco is another that has already opened. Is the internet another? And the 2009 report stated "K12 is stable [in yoghurt]" and "[in NZ and Aus, K12 is legal] in yoghurt and other food presentations", so that may be in the pipeline right now too for all we know.

Costco, chewing gum, internet, yoghurt - are they all large markets that are open right now in differing degrees?

We are probably mostly agreed that Blis's day will come when volume sales occur. We probably also agree that that takes either a lot of advertising, or a bulk market segment, or both. We probably agree that Blis was definitely not there yet last half, but that they probably will be there within a couple of years at most.

The bit we don't agree on is when Blis will arrive over that maybe 2 year stretch. Personally I think it possible Blis has already made inroads there this half. But there is no public data known to us to support that, and I readily agree it just plain may not be happening, and may not for some time. As I say, the Imagenetix quarterly results may give us some clues. Yes, GRAS would be great, but does Blis actually need that much to achieve lift off?

Hey, wouldn't it be nice if this affected us? "She also revealed that PepsiCo was looking at developing a nutritional drink aimed at children." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/7113250/PepsiCo-plans-30bn-push-into-healthy-eating.html

simla

31-01-2010, 08:01 PM

Very sorry to hear that, Fungus Pudding. My own experience has certainly been quite the reverse of that. Interesting you've never had a sore throat in your life, which was where the whole K12 research started. Anyway, sounds very unpleasant for you.

With lots of year of public use, it seems unlikely that this is anything common. But I have to say that a week is a very long time before you reacted if that was the cause. You may have "just" coincidentally get swine flu in a mild way, or something?

brucea

31-01-2010, 08:55 PM

I think it is stretching belief for Fungus Pudding to blame Throatguard as the cause of his sore throat; maybe it was a viral infection which K12 and the antibiotic (which doctors all too freely prescribe) would have had little effect anyway. The sore throat probably would resolved with or without the antibiotic. I may be wrong in that maybe the GP did a throat culture and K12 was identified as the cause???? If it was caused by Throatguard I would have expected the GP to pass this info on to Blis for follow up- did this happen?
Interesting plug for CostCo in the new sharp comedy on TV3 tonight called "Modern Family". The 2 gay characters go a CostCo outlet to get diapers for their newly adopted Vietnamese baby - one is reluctant to go there and the other accuses him of being a "snob". However once inside the shop the "snob" is really impressed at the place ("AND the diapers are right next to the tyres"). When he sees how cheap the diapers are he stocks up on them. Looking around at the variety of goods "Wow, I've been looking for this for ages" - he is amazed "What IS this place!". Costco must be quite well known in the States - I first heard of it through this site. The TV segment was filmed inside one of their stores and would have been a huge free advertisement for them...

simla

31-01-2010, 10:08 PM

A doctor tells me a lot of sore throats are going around at the moment, that it is not uncommon generally for sore throats to be so sore people cannot sleep, nor uncommon for them to say it really hurts to swallow and even breathe, and that most of sore throats of adults are thought to be viral.

brucea

31-01-2010, 10:24 PM

Yes Simla, you are correct. A good friend of mine recently had a very sore throat/laryngitis which her GP said was most likely viral; it resolved after a week or so. It could have been purely coincidental that FP might have contracted a similar virus at the time of using Throatguard - who knows...My experience with Throatguard is that it does not prevent colds, but I get over them quickly as I no longer get the complications of earache and sinusitis which used to drag on for weeks and make life miserable for me.
I take the point that some people may not take it regularly; I would expect M18 would be a different proposition as tooth decay is painful and expensive and if M18 is truly effective then it makes economic sense to make it part of one's daily dental hygiene routine.

fungus pudding

01-02-2010, 03:38 AM

brucea

01-02-2010, 07:49 AM

Yes, it could be an allergy even to one of the tableting aids - it is a good idea to report any of these issues to the chemist you bought the product from so they can give feedback to the manufacturer.

emearg

01-02-2010, 08:09 AM

I didn't actually blame Throatguard - read my post - I detailed how I developed a very bad throat while taking it. It may have been coincidental, but the product certainly did nothing to help. It might be fine, but it didn't help me and I wouldn't take it again in case it was that that kicked it off. Who knows? I might be one in a million with an allergy to it?

Bad luck FP! Am I right in inferring from your post it was the TG daily you were taking? That stuff takes several weeks to build up adequately to do much good. The TG boost only takes a few days. If I am right then it didn't have enough time to help you out which is unfortunate.

Having read many of the published papers I doubt you have an allergy to it as you already have S. Salivarius in your mouth (it is the dominant species) so all you were doing was increasing the population. Not only were you increasing the population you were improving the quality of it as K12 has the ability to terminate less desirable bacteria to make more room for S. Salivarius.

Perhaps one of the other ingredients in the lozenge?

It is a valid point though. People who have a bad experience (proven or otherwise) with a product will stay away from it.

Belief in a product at this stage of a companies life is important so I can understand why you sold out!

Scuffer

02-02-2010, 11:34 AM

It would be difficult to get an allergy to one of the two bacteria which are fighting against each other for the control of your mouth when they are both are already there, remember it is the balance of said bacteria which give fresh breath. :D:D:D:D

simla

02-02-2010, 05:01 PM

Ireland may have difficulties, but the US is hardly immune to general downturn. In all honesty, I wouldn't recommend reading this if you've just got your happy, summer feeling together. It is relevant, or I wouldn't post it, but you may prefer to just take it that things may go slowly in US markets yet. Sorry to cast a shadow, but there's no point in ignoring half the story. You've got to feel sorry for all the people caught up in this sort of thing. This is about the US generally, nothing specific to Blis.

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/01/massive-layoffs-coming-in-nyc-nevada.html

emearg

03-02-2010, 11:28 AM

Times are tough but so was 2009! That didn't stop a lot of companies making new products, educating their customers and selling some.

When times are tough well run companies focus on innovation and doing the important things well.

Consumers are feeling the pinch but many still have some money. Perhaps people will be spending what they do have more wisely?

Perhaps this is why a common approach shared by a number of the products is 'buy this product as it may save you on doctors bills and sick days'?

To change the subject a little...my VegLife Ear, Nose and Throat lozenges turned up this morning. They come in huge containers which are less than half full! That said, each lozenge is much bigger than the throat guard ones I have been used to. I have had one and I must say it is yummy! It has a slight fizzy flavour to it.

The cost works out to 28 cents a day. I think that is pretty good value!

brucea

03-02-2010, 12:01 PM

I figure that Blis has exciting prospects for new products based on the K12/M18 probiotic concept that will be rolled out in the next few years. These will be safer and more natural alternatives to the use antibiotics and steroids which can have long term side effects. The Blis story has some mileage in it yet .... so who wants to stick their neck out for a end of year share price expectation? As I said before, my punt is in the 20 - 22 cents range.

Cannibal

03-02-2010, 12:18 PM

Agreed that new products are in the offing and mainstream ones at that - hopefully.
They have a tendancy to make really big announcements not very frequently. One must be due soon.
My pick is 16-18 within six month and 22-27 with the year.
Time will tell.

emearg

03-02-2010, 04:53 PM

I note a few people want to sell out of Blis which may bring the share price down to 10 cents.

Sellers depth:
Price No. Quantity
10 1 3,000 ($300 worth)
11 1 2,000 ($220 worth)
11.3 1 4,800 ($542 worth)
11.4 1 218,000
12 3 84,300
12.1 1 30,000
12.5 1 100,000
13 1 35,500
17 1 10,000

Buyers want a few more than this number...

Price No. Quantity
100,000 1 8
150,000 1 6.5
100,000 1 5
35,000 1 4.1

As things currently stand anybody wanting more than a grands worth of Blis shares is going to have to pay 11.4 cents.

So, will we see a big drop in the share price?

Bigger volumes on the preference shares are available for both buyers and sellers. But there is a gap in their price expectations...

Buyers Depth:
Price No. Quantity
7,600 1 250

Sellers Depth:
Price No. Quantity
280 1 7,781
325 1 3,215

simla

03-02-2010, 09:57 PM

Well, despite my pessimism over world markets, I'm picking a higher share price than that.

Things were really quiet last January, too. The share price dropped from 6 cents in December to 5 in January to 4 in March. It then bottomed for several months, as the first new US product only appeared 3 months before those March results.

For a share price of 15 cents, BLT probably has to make about 1 cent a share, or $1.38m on current ordinaries. Add in an optimism factor, and it probably only has to make maybe $700-$800,000. Well, that is certainly possible by March if the second half matches the first, and could be exceeded if there is any noticeable growth as well - which there could be considering the winter in the US, and the market development of Blis there. Yes, it may be less than that, too, obviously.

Which makes it perfectly possible the share is fairly underpriced even now for the period ending 8 weeks from now. As usual, I think there is room for surprise on the upside too.

But then step forward 6 more months or so to the following half results. For a starter, we might reasonably expect there to be more growth in existing product lines, especially since so many products have still only come out recently. Against that, it will not have been winter in the northern hemisphere. However, the Japanese sales so far are built on bad breath and will presumably continue anyway, with a population verging on half that of the US. And Tooth Fairy should continue to grow regardless of winter.

But then you would add in the expectation of progress in other countries. The last report said, "In conjunction with Frutarom, the Company is also developing other business opportunities identified in Europe, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, South East Asia and Australia, which it anticipates will generate initial sales in the current financial year." Should we not expect some reasonable result from that by the November report? And the last full year report in June said, "Following the appointment of Frutarom as a distributor for BLIS and the FSANZ ruling on the use of K12 in foods, BLIS is now actively working with Frutarom to develop new commercial opportunities in Australia."

Then add in M18. The last half report also said, "The Company expects to formally launch the BLIS M18 to the broader dietary supplements market early in 2010." Well, that's bound to add up.

Then add in the whole chewing gum bit. K12 has got to have a fair chance of doing well, and then add in M18 ...

Next, the GRAS application is thought to be coming through "in 2010".

And the AGM presentation in July 09 stated that regulatory approval is being sought in China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Taiwan and Korea. Any one of these coming through would be a big development too.

Then there is Nestle. The full year report reminded us that, "subject to a successful outcome it is anticipated that royalty payments could be generated in 2011 with the commercial launch of an infant formula product containing BLIS K12 as an ingredient." And, last half report again: "BLIS Technologies remains in close contact with its European research partner Nestle Nutritional and is focused on future commercial opportunities that may evolve from this relationship." Now, progress on that will likely be mentioned in detail by the November report, if not before? Would that not affect the share price, even without the revenue at that time?

Then, too, there was the fascinating sentence in the last half report about Costco, "This and similar developments with other companies ..."

Then, too, we have the usual wildcard of new product formats. The full year report said, for example, "Using the principles and approaches described here we are developing novel anti-infective therapeutics that can stimulate protective immunity while suppressing potentially harmful inﬂammation."

Finally, consider this from the last report: "We are extremely encouraged by the significant investments that third parties are making in development and marketing of products based on our proprietary ingredients."

Add bits of this together, let alone all of it, and surely we might hope for quite significant growth in revenue during 2010, plus a fair dollop of good forward news by the end of the year too. Then might we not hope for a share price somewhat north of 25 cents by then, which is only 70% up on a price that may already be justified today?

Or not. As usual, only time will tell. First, let's have a maiden profit.

simla

04-02-2010, 09:36 AM

I forgot to add my usual rider about world markets being a fickle place. If there is a bit of a general dive, BLT is bound to get caught up in it. Nevertheless, I can't see how the above developments, if they happen, won't still provide strong support to BLT. I guess it depends how much of the market is aware of BLT at the time, perhaps?

emearg

05-02-2010, 05:26 PM

While I'm quite happy to try to predict revenues I won't even have a stab at the share price in 6 or 12 months. I don't have a clue! All I can say is that if results are positive the share price will increase!

I'm in this share for the long term (unless progress stalls or reverses) so I am more focused on what the share price will be in 3 or 5 years. While I won't pretend I can put a figure on it I am very confident it will be many times the current share price.

neopoleII

05-02-2010, 07:49 PM

quote"" I am very confident it will be many times the current share price.""

i am very confident that in 3 to 5 years it will be 1/2 the original share price.

fungus pudding

05-02-2010, 08:35 PM

quote"" I am very confident it will be many times the current share price.""

i am very confident that in 3 to 5 years it will be 1/2 the original share price.

Hate to be a spoilsport - but I'm not.

Bobby_Fischer

05-02-2010, 10:09 PM

quote"" I am very confident it will be many times the current share price.""

i am very confident that in 3 to 5 years it will be 1/2 the original share price.

The original share price was $1, of course.

brucea

05-02-2010, 10:39 PM

I guess we will just have to wait and see what profits Blis makes this year and the success of further product lines that they must have in the wings. I look at my Wellington Drive shares and despair but at least there is more than a glimmer of hope with Blis... I mentioned the new Adult dental M18 probiotic lozenges now available from the States at work this week and there was quite an interest in this - some are ordering it from the USA. Considering the $$ some of my friends spend on supplements with dubious health benefits, I think they will give this a try and hopefully reap the financial benefits from reduced tooth decay. I plan to tell my dentist about the M18 product when I have my next check-up as I am sure he will be interested to see whether it reduces plaque as claimed. Maybe some health vitamin shops might pick up on this and import some from the States. Come on guys, let's be proactive and spread the word!

simla

06-02-2010, 08:58 AM

Compare these two types of companies: biotechs, and marketing-oriented companies.

Here's one discussion of a marketing-oriented company: http://www.eag.com/art7.htm

"As we’ve been discussing, marketing involves not only Product but Price, Place, and Promotion (the textbook Four P’s of marketing). Your offering to the customer is more than just your product (or service). It also includes the price, the channels of distribution, and the ways in which you educate and persuade the customer (advertising, sales, direct marketing, etc.). Everything should be part of one cohesive strategy.

The successful marketing-oriented company has put together a product that meets customer needs, including features, price structure, financing, delivery, support, etc. Knowledge of the customers and how/where they want to buy leads to careful selection of appropriate channels for getting the product to them. The promotion strategy reflects a customer point of view in the choice of methods, media, and messages."

Now compare that to a biotech company: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_biotechnology_companies

"A "biotechnology company" is a company whose products or services primarily use biotechnology methods for their production, design or delivery.[citation needed] Examining the list of the top 100 such companies, below, shows that many have negative income. This is consistent with the notion that only one in ten biotechnology companies were considered profitable in mid-2005."

Which of those most resembles BLT? When thinking marketing oriented, I think "customer" may very well be third party companies rather then end consumers here. BLT is doing a pretty good B2B model so far, and their marketing efforts are heavily focused on other businesses. It has been my belief for a couple of years now that Blis was transforming from biotech into marketing-oriented, and I have seen nothing much inconsistent with that - pretty obviously they also remain a biotech anyway, of course. Truly successful marketing-oriented companies have underlying product ranges, on which are built marketing empires: Colgate, Cocacola, Apple. And consider how none of those three particularly sell their products directly to customers - their marketing is definitely aimed at getting intermediary companies to distribute their products for them.

Whether K12/M18 work well is a necessary condition for success, but it is not sufficient. The old BLT had the product. What has been added is a huge attitude to marketing. In all my comments on the succes of BLT, you'll find I spend most of my time talking about how the marketing is succeeding. Why I see BLT doing well in future is because they HAVE got products that the market is looking for, but on top of that they have made marketing them the number one priority. They now have a network of businesses that they deal with all around the world. In marketing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing this is a hybrid of "relationship marketing" and "business marketing". BLT have set up a strong network of outlets, and they will need to feed more products into the pipeline. Well, doesn't every release from BLT more or less say that, or am I reading too much into things?

Personally, I think estimates of how BLT is going to do need to heavily revolve around how successful their marketing is, and a little less about whether the product is going to capture the market. Numerous good products have never taken off, whereas marketing has succeeded in getting people to pay a fortune for nothing more than bottles of water - which is free at home and at work!

Anyway, that's just my take on the situation.

ps Nice to hear from you again Bobby. You're a man of few words! Care to express an opinion, in general?

emearg

06-02-2010, 09:40 AM

i am very confident that in 3 to 5 years it will be 1/2 the original share price.

For me that will be excellent!

For others perhaps not so much...

emearg

06-02-2010, 09:51 AM

Hate to be a spoilsport - but I'm not.

I am interested to know is there anything Blis can do or achieve for you to consider them a good investment? Would achieving GRAS do it? Or sales of $20 million? Or a $2 million profit? Or having products in 20 countries? Or paying a dividend?

You mentioned earlier you "seriously doubt this stuff will find sufficient repeat business to survive". That will be hard for any of us to prove one way or the other. A targeted survey would answer the question but we aren't in a position to do one. Do you know other users? Have they bought the product more than once?

fungus pudding

06-02-2010, 12:18 PM

I am interested to know is there anything Blis can do or achieve for you to consider them a good investment? Would achieving GRAS do it? Or sales of $20 million? Or a $2 million profit? Or having products in 20 countries? Or paying a dividend?

You mentioned earlier you "seriously doubt this stuff will find sufficient repeat business to survive". That will be hard for any of us to prove one way or the other. A targeted survey would answer the question but we aren't in a position to do one. Do you know other users? Have they bought the product more than once?

They're not a good investment because they can't pay a dividend. Number of countries, turnover, etc are irrelevant. Profit isn't. I think by this stage of their development if they haven't been able to acheive satisfactory turnover through repeat orders, they never will. I hope I'm wrong because I am a Dunedinite and like to see local companies thriving. But look at all the alternative health stuff that have their crazes - latest is probably Resveratrol - they take off on a bit of Hype and generate big sales before very long. Blis just hasn't hit the spot. Fingers crossed for all you believers though.

simla

06-02-2010, 06:54 PM

I can see that caution is reasonable here. But I'm not sure that I completely agree with the line of argument.

That the supplements market is scattered with shops that are not crowded, I can agree with. But on the other hand, the market is apparently big enough that there ARE shops that specialise in selling that sort of thing. And every supermarket has a big display of them too. So they must sell. Indeed, it was pointed out on this thread in January that Blackmores alone have sales of over $200m.

And the argument that they would have succeeded by now if it were possible sounds reasonable. Except that there was a change of management two or three years ago that has had quite visible and dramatic effects. The first US third party product resulting from this only went to market a year ago and now we have over 20 Blis ingredient products on the market, with more to follow.

Time, as always, will tell!

simla

06-02-2010, 07:00 PM

Interesting that Imagene tix are themselves working on dental caries too.

http://www.news-medical.net/news/20091105/Imagenetix-awarded-US-patent-for-its-1-TDC-drug-candidate-to-treat-periodontal-disease.aspx

Bobby_Fischer

08-02-2010, 02:52 PM

ps Nice to hear from you again Bobby. You're a man of few words! Care to express an opinion, in general?

Simla, I still keep a close eye on this thread, but have lost some of my enthusiasm over the years. However, yourself and the other regular posters here more than compensate for that loss ...

I am still holding many BLT, and waiting to get back into the black one day. With the change in focus (from retail to ingredients) I think things look significantly better for Blis now than at any time in the past. If only the market agreed ... But then it is a very different market today than it was in the heady days of 2004 when it first looked like BLIS had cracked open the US via Therabreath! Also I think that when a company falls seriously out of favour, as Blis did by repeatedly promising and failing to deliver on projections for positive cashflow (not to mention coming perilously close to folding altogether), then it needs to overcompensate on the upside to win back what has been lost. So, should the companies affairs continue their current positive trend, I wouldn't be surprised to one day see a sudden and fairly dramatic appreciation in the SP. Let us all hope for that eventuality.

Best of luck to all.

simla

08-02-2010, 03:55 PM

Thanks, Bobby. That's an interesting take on the situation, and makes a fair amount of sense.

brucea

08-02-2010, 10:08 PM

I wondered if the Therabreath product regime proved too complicated for customers to follow - as well as seeming quite expensive and possibly lost among the many other items the website sells - has anyone heard how Therabreath got on with this? I found the Blis Fresh breath kit a bit of a hassle to follow with having to first use the gargle solution then taking the lozenges at various intervals whereas the Blis Throatguard is simple - one lozenge a day which is easy to use and seems just as effective (sort of follows the KISS principle!). Blis appeared never that good at advertising its products (or maybe lack of cash to do this was a problem). The new strategy of supplying the ingredients for others to promote looks very promising. I think the M18 probiotic line is going to be a winner ...ah well, let's see ..

simla

09-02-2010, 06:24 PM

Gum for sale:

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=177175893719&topic=32489
http://www.canadianvitaminshop.com/epages/Store.sf?ObjectPath=/Shops/Vitaminshop9db&ViewAction=ViewProduct&ObjectId=4308300&Category=

When I wrote this, it was $6.88 for an 8 piece pack.

emearg

09-02-2010, 07:21 PM

That is better than $9.95 here:
http://www.natvd.com/en/online-shop/cultured-care.html

The product still isn't available from what I can see. Coming soon.

It was meant to be launched today Canadian time.

Still awaiting Canadian NHP approval?

All in all this is a pretty expensive way to get your daily dose of Blis K12. I wonder how successful it will be?

Chippie

09-02-2010, 09:06 PM

It appears to be a crazy price for 12 pieces of gum? Obviously the marketing people beleive that people will be prepared to pay this price, but I never would.

simla

09-02-2010, 09:11 PM

emearg

09-02-2010, 09:57 PM

It appears to be a crazy price for 12 pieces of gum? Obviously the marketing people beleive that people will be prepared to pay this price, but I never would.

It is only 8 pieces of gum. Worse than you first thought aye...

emearg

09-02-2010, 10:03 PM

I doubt the Canadian Vitamin Shop would have it available to buy online if they couldn't supply it. It's not much work to keep it off line, whereas a major headache to have a backlog of orders that you can't supply? Also, the facebook page said, "We'll update this list as it grows."

As to how successful, my gut feeling is that a pretty big train is starting to pull out of the station here. But we'll see.

Online retailers do jump the gun. They will often offer products on line they don't have in stock. I have experienced this myself. It is extremely annoying. More so when a week later they still don't have it in stock but you wouldn't know looking at their website...

The CulturedCare website has not been updated for several days. Nor has their Twitter or Facebook page.

If it was on it's way to retailers (or was already there) they would be telling the world!

brucea

09-02-2010, 11:50 PM

Cannibal

10-02-2010, 06:38 AM

Imagenetix have just posted their 3rd quarter results.

"Commenting on the results of the third quarter, Mr. William Spencer, Imagenetix Chief Executive Officer said: "We are encouraged by the increase in sales in the Food, Drug and Mass Market segments of our business for Celadrin, our joint health product and BioGuard, our recently introduced immune boosting probiotic for the promotion of ear, nose and throat health. During the third quarter, revenue from this segment increased by $733,000 compared to the previous year. We anticipate expanding television advertising in concert with store expansion to increase awareness of both Celadrin and BioGuard. We believe this marketing program for the mass market segment will continue to result in improved sales."

Some impressive and tangible numbers there for those who are good at extrapolating. Plus more TV advertising for Blis.

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/imagenetix-inc-reports-third-quarter-2010-results-83881362.html

simla

10-02-2010, 06:49 AM

Imagentix/Bioguard's third quarterly results, 3 months to Dec 2009: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Imagenetix-Inc-Reports-Third-prnews-4044894910.html?x=0&.v=1

(a) "We are encouraged by the increase in sales in the Food, Drug and Mass Market segments of our business for Celadrin, our joint health product and BioGuard, our recently introduced immune boosting probiotic for the promotion of ear, nose and throat health. During the third quarter, revenue from this segment increased by $733,000 compared to the previous year. We anticipate expanding television advertising in concert with store expansion to increase awareness of both Celadrin and BioGuard. We believe this marketing program for the mass market segment will continue to result in improved sales."

Also, detail : http://xml.10kwizard.com/filing_raw.php?repo=tenk&ipage=6741327

(b) "PURCHASE AND SUPPLY BUYOUT AGREEMENT In September 2009, we entered into an agreement with one of our customers whereby they bought out the remaining order commitments under a previous Purchase and Supply Agreement. As part of the buyout agreement, we agreed to a one time payment of $1,250,000 to satisfy their purchase commitments which were scheduled to continue through May 2013. Also, as part of the agreement, we were not required to ship any product. The negotiated amount was reflected as other income during the nine months ended December 31, 2009."

(c) "Net sales for the quarter ended December 31, 2009 decreased $319,000, a 15.3% decrease, to $1,765,000 compared to $2,084,000 for the quarter ended December 31, 2008. The primary reasons for the sales decrease are a reduction of approximately $726,000 in distributor sales as a result of entering into an acceleration agreement with one of our customers during the previous fiscal quarter and a reduction of approximately $300,000 in sales of our weight loss product offset by increases in sales of our own branded product, Inflame Away Celadrin, to the mass market segment of approximately $733,000. We anticipate, sales for the mass market segment to continue to provide improved sales during the balance of our current fiscal year."

(d) This link reports net sales for the Dec quarter were 1,765,000, compared to (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=iagx.ob) Sep quarter 1,901,000 and Jun quarter 1,702,000 and Mar quarter 1,326,000.

Putting all that together, the figures all interact and we have no detail on Bioguard. But:

1. Comment (a) apparently tells us that Celadrin plus Bioguard sales are up $733,000 this quarter Dec 2009 (= up $2.9m pa) compared to Dec 2008. How much of that was Bioguard? We don't know.

2. Comment (c) apparently tells us that sales for the Dec quarter were down on both Dec last year and Sept this year. But comment (c) apparently suggests it was down about $1m the quarter for other reasons and would otherwise have been up (see 4, below)

3. Comment (a) says the $733,000 increase was from Celadrin plus Bioguard, but comment (c) only mentions Celadrin there. Surely it must be both, since (a) calls it the "Food, Drug and Mass Market segment"?

4. Putting the decrease in 2. back into the quarter would have seen sales of $2,791,000 (if I read (c) rightly) compared to $1,901,000 in September. (ie an increase of 46% or 0.9m a quarter, or 3.6m pa?) How much was Bioguard?

5. Note in (a): "We anticipate expanding television advertising in concert with store expansion to increase awareness of both Celadrin and BioGuard. We believe this marketing program for the mass market segment will continue to result in improved sales." So they still want to spend money advertising Bioguard, suggesting it is worth it to them.

So what does all that mean for Bioguard sales? Very hard to say!

However, it would appear that either Celadrin, or Bioguard, or both, had a pretty good quarter of sales. It would be nice to think Bioguard was doing well, but they have been advertising both during the quarter, so we can't tell. If Celadrin plus Bioguard were up $733,000 this quarter, might we think sales of the new Bioguard were somewhere between US$50,000 and US$650,000 (presumably their cut of the retail price), some portion of which found its way back to BLT for the quarter? The detailed link says cost of goods sold was 49.7% for the quarter, but that is average of all products of course.

Is that good news for BLT? I would have thought so. It's hard to see that it was bad news anyway. Disappointingly, we are not a whole lot wiser about Bioguard sales than we were! The next quarter should see Bioguard in a much larger number of Costco stores, or we think so anyway.

brucea

10-02-2010, 08:48 AM

Cannibal

10-02-2010, 08:59 AM

Thanks Cannibal and Simla - you guys amaze me at your diligence in how quickly you pick up the latest information on Bioguard sales! It shows how much the internet has helped with accessing this information.

I'd like to say that it was diligent and intelligent searching but I simply use Google Alerts. I have about 4 for Blis.

These are my current Blis searches

+blis +k12 (http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&q=%2Bblis+%2Bk12&hl=en&gl=us)Comprehensiveas-it-happensup to 20 resultsEmailedit (http://www.google.com/alerts/edit?hl=en&gl=us&s=EAAAACZSzIzspJ7UR4NgsapwNio#idEAAAACZSzIzspJ7UR4 NgsapwNio) +blis m18 (http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&q=%2Bblis+m18&hl=en&gl=us)Comprehensiveas-it-happensup to 20 resultsEmailedit (http://www.google.com/alerts/edit?hl=en&gl=us&s=EAAAAL6wtqEXT6lFKEmlPIaw_lM#idEAAAAL6wtqEXT6lFKE mlPIaw_lM) bioguard probiotic (http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&q=bioguard+probiotic&hl=en&gl=us)Comprehensiveas-it-happensup to 20 resultsEmailedit (http://www.google.com/alerts/edit?hl=en&gl=us&s=EAAAANAUUKv1AHEc_aSjeB9pm1E#idEAAAANAUUKv1AHEc_a SjeB9pm1E) salivarius M18 (http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&q=salivarius+M18&hl=en&gl=us)Comprehensiveas-it-happensup to 20 resultsEmailedit (http://www.google.com/alerts/edit?hl=en&gl=us&s=EAAAAIkyotMiPAa4b1ZBPicnRQI#idEAAAAIkyotMiPAa4b1 ZBPicnRQI)

You put the + sign in front of say Blis to avoid getting alerts for bliss or similar. Without theh + sign you get some ineresting results for bliss!

Go here to set up your own - http://www.google.com/alerts/

emearg

10-02-2010, 10:01 AM

The comment about store expansion is interesting. Hopefully I am interpreting this correcting as meaning Costco WILL be rolling BioGuard out nationwide. Time will tell...

Back on page 75 of this thread when I was playing guess the BioGuard revenue I came up with the number of approximately 200,000 units of BioGuard being sold in 6 months. Split that in two for the quarter being reported and we get 100,000 units. Multiply that by the $5 I guessed Imagentix would get for each sale and you get half a million. That number looks reasonable considering the result today. Perhaps they only get $4. Either number fits inside the revenue increase. Guessing again of course but what else can we do?

Having given my original figures some more thought I doubt Costco will be getting as big a share as I originally estimated. I would think Imagentix would get the biggest share, followed by Blis, Costco and Frutatrom.

That said, for the purposes of these estimates (guesses as Simla keeps reminding me) I will leave the Blis share at $3 US.

If I am anything like correct it may mean $300,000 US (approx 400k NZ) to Blis for the three months just for one product.

emearg

10-02-2010, 10:08 AM

The Nature's Plus Dental Care Probiotic "with M18 Probiotics" from VitaminLife.com that I ordered on 27 Jan arrived today. The two bottles of 60 lozenges cost US$45.22 incl shipping which works out at NZ$66 or about 55cents per tablet. Recommended use is two lozenges per day. Very smart looking packaging with an insert from "an independent FDA approved testing laboratory" guarantee of quality certificate of analysis. It would certainly stand out on any product shelf! Methinks this could be a winner!

That is just over $400 a year! That is a lot of money!

I don't mind spending a hundred a year to visit the dentist, buy toothpaste and floss etc as I consider that all a wise investment but I couldn't justify another $400 a year. Perhaps you can?

Hopefully there are more people like you and fewer like me but somehow I doubt it...

That said, let us know how you get on with it.

I shall be keeping an eye out for a cheaper option. Ideally somebody will make a product containing both M18 and K12 in high enough numbers to be effective.

simla

10-02-2010, 12:43 PM

I think the main thing about the Bioguard result is that it gives no reason to think this half is not on track for Blis. Yes, it may have all been Celadrin sales, but probably it wasn't. In which case, that was probably a pretty good result for a new product in a 50 store trial.

Cannibal

10-02-2010, 12:47 PM

My pick is that Blis more than held their own in those numbers. If not they would not mention them so prominently and they would not be investing in more advertising.

Chippie

10-02-2010, 12:49 PM

They would not have mentioned Bioguard if it was just Celadrin sales. So this has to be a positive outcome for the initial trial.

Brilliant news!

brucea

10-02-2010, 04:22 PM

That is just over $400 a year! That is a lot of money!

I don't mind spending a hundred a year to visit the dentist, buy toothpaste and floss etc as I consider that all a wise investment but I couldn't justify another $400 a year. Perhaps you can?

Hopefully there are more people like you and fewer like me but somehow I doubt it...

That said, let us know how you get on with it.

I shall be keeping an eye out for a cheaper option. Ideally somebody will make a product containing both M18 and K12 in high enough numbers to be effective.
But Emearg, when the share price zooms this will only cost you a few Blis shares per year ..... seriously though ...I agree that, yes, in NZ money it is pricey but maybe in the States this is cost effective given the high charges for dental visits there. Many Auckland city slickers think nothing of spending over $20 a week on coffee or wine, so $400 pa for a life free of caries may seem reasonable. I plan to take a packet around the local health food shops to raise awareness of M18 as I doubt Blis will market its own brand of M18 here. If the M18 product becomes more mainstream the price should decrease - as it did with St John's Wort. Maybe 1x Throat Guard and 1x Natures Plus Dental care per day might work?

simla

10-02-2010, 10:01 PM

On a slightly cautious note, the release said "increased by $733,000 compared to the previous year", not compared to the previous quarter. That is, it includes market growth over an entire year, even though the figure only relates to one quarter's sales.

However, http://quotemedia.10kwizard.com/download.php?ipage=6382345&action=RTF&src=quotemedia&msrc=68a2dcc319463f7fa6367eee2437b37d says Celadrin formulations were 74% of sales for the year to March 31 2009. With the year's sales then of $7,460,872, 74% would be $5.5m, which averages $1.4m per quarter.

So an increase of $733,000 per quarter over one year should still leave room for reasonable Bioguard sales, we might think? These results don't give us a very clear picture of Bioguard-only sales, do they.

simla

12-02-2010, 09:39 AM

We've had a lot of discussion on this group over time. Maybe here's why:

Announcement dates are NZX anouncements
Product dates are when we first saw the product on this group [New Prod-->]

2008:
=====

Share price about 7.5 c

10/03/2008 GENERAL: BLT: BLIS on Track with Reorganization

13/06/2008 FLLYR: BLT: BLT - Preliminary Report Year End 2008 " Product sales were up 41% to $657K primarily due to increases in offshore sales of $270K." "The implementation of the new business strategy has been the focus over the last year. This focus is on business to business relationships seeking partnerships with companies with regional and global marketing reach." "Patents have been granted in Canada, European Union and Hong Kong for the Lantibiotic patent and in the USA for the Dental Caries patent"

31/07/2008 GENERAL: BLT: BLIS Announces a New Retail Agreement in Ireland

31/07/2008 MEETING: BLT: BLIS announces a Significant Investor "Edinburgh Securities Limited"

20/10/2008 GENERAL: BLT: BLIS reaches agreement for NOVEL Probiotic "a formal marketing and distribution agreement with global distribution company, Frutarom Ltd."

28/11/2008 HALFYR: BLT: Interim Report For the 6 months to 30 September 2008 "Revenue for the period was lower than for the comparable period in the previous year, with sales for the six months of $0.158 million and other revenue of $0.151 million." "However, total revenue in October and November (following the end of the reporting period) exceeded $0.300 million." "It is anticipated that the proposed capital raising will take the form of a rights issue"

[New Prod-->] Animal Parade Inner Ear (Dec 23 08)

Share price 5 to 6 cents

2009:
=====

05/02/2009 RIGHT: BLT: BLIS Announces Rights Issue

Share price about 4 cents

[New Prod-->] Natures Plus Ear Nose & Throat (11 Feb 09)

[New Prod-->] Solaray Oral Flora (pre April 09)

08/05/2009 RIGHT: BLTPA: BLT - Rights Issue Announcement ie. Issue Completed

28/05/2009 FLLYR: BLT: BLT - Preliminary full year result to 31 March 2009 "product sales were down 7% to $609K primarily due to the reduction in sales in Australia and New Zealand" "US sales were $325K with international revenue amounting to $462K." "Product packaging was reviewed and new packaging introduced to the market during the 2008 year." "improving the way in which the customer would interact with products by simplifying the usage guidelines." "In China BLIS has signed a manufacturing and marketing agreement" "[In Asia the] company is confident however that for each country-specific project, it has developed strong commercial partnerships" "[in] yoghurt products that BLIS K12 is stable" "approval by the Food Standards Authority New Zealand and Australia "

[New Prod-->] LEF Advanced oral Hygiene (Jul 1 09)

[New Prod-->] Epoca (22 Jul 09)

31/07/2009 ADDRESS: BLT: BLT - AGM Press Release and CEO Presentation - NZ sales doubled, Release of M18, Costco (not named then), "another major international consumer products company" (no details), GRAS, Canada, Japan, "Asia-wide business development strategy is in place and follows a similar commercial template as that used for North America".

Share price about 8 cents

[New Prod-->] Nature’s Plus Ultra Lipoic (Sep 11 09)

[New Prod-->] Ultra Probiotics Vegetarian Capsules (Sep 11 09)

[New Prod-->] Animal Parade® Tooth Fairy™ Children’s Chewable Dental Probiotic (Sep 11 09)

[New Prod-->] Whole Food Total Body Cleanse with Açai (Sep 11 09)

[New Prod-->] Imagenetix - Bioguard (Oct 2 09)

[New Prod-->] Biogenesis - Pro Flora Oral Health Chewables (Oct 2 09)

12/11/2009 HALFYR: BLT: 2009 Half Year Results "net deficit of $11k before tax and finance costs", sales revenue $663k, "promote BLIS K12 to the top 50 dietary supplement manufactures", "opportunities identified in Europe, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, South East Asia and Australia, which it anticipates will generate initial sales in the current financial year"

Share price 11 to 12 cents

[New Prod-->] Natures Plus Adult’s Dental Care Probiotic Lozenges - Peppermint (Nov 13 09)

[New Prod-->] Ultra Lipoic™ Bi-Layered Mini-Tabs (Nov 13 09)

[New Prod-->] VegLife Ear Nose and Throat Shield (Oct 13 09)

[New Prod-->] Swanson - Ultra Oral Probiotic (Dec 30 09)

2010:
=====

Share price about 11 cents

[New Prod-->] Dr Sinatra Ear, Nose & Throat Defense (Jan 19 2010 ),

[New Prod-->] True Botanicas - True Defense for Kids (Jan 28 2010),

[New Prod-->] CulturedCare gum (launch date: soon/now Feb 8 2010)

As usual, I've done my best to get the facts right. Corrections welcome. Clearly the work in 2008 set it all up, and the work now is undoubtedly setting up the future too.

This is one busy company. No wonder we discuss things a lot.

simla

12-02-2010, 09:55 AM

Interesting to note that all of the following products basically should feed into the next half results, not the last half? Some setup revenue would have been in the last though, presumably.

[New Prod-->] Nature’s Plus Ultra Lipoic (Sep 11 09)
[New Prod-->] Ultra Probiotics Vegetarian Capsules (Sep 11 09)
[New Prod-->] Animal Parade® Tooth Fairy™ Children’s Chewable Dental Probiotic (Sep 11 09)
[New Prod-->] Whole Food Total Body Cleanse with Açai (Sep 11 09)
[New Prod-->] Imagenetix - Bioguard (Oct 2 09)
[New Prod-->] Biogenesis - Pro Flora Oral Health Chewables (Oct 2 09)
[New Prod-->] Natures Plus Adult’s Dental Care Probiotic Lozenges - Peppermint (Nov 13 09)
[New Prod-->] Ultra Lipoic™ Bi-Layered Mini-Tabs (Nov 13 09)
[New Prod-->] VegLife Ear Nose and Throat Shield (Oct 13 09)
[New Prod-->] Swanson - Ultra Oral Probiotic (Dec 30 09)
[New Prod-->] Dr Sinatra Ear, Nose & Throat Defense (Jan 19 2010 )
[New Prod-->] True Botanicas - True Defense for Kids (Jan 28 2010)
[New Prod-->] CulturedCare gum (launch date: soon/now Feb 8 2010)

Bobby_Fischer

12-02-2010, 10:17 AM

The Bioguard trial at Costco should be done by now (was suggested in one announcement that it would be complete by end November 2009, I think) , assuming it went to plan. Surprised there hasn't been an announcement yet ...

simla

12-02-2010, 11:19 AM

It may not be a yes/no situation, but a gradual shift. Here's one report about Imagenetix, http://www.redchip.com/visibility/investor.asp?symbol=IAGX "IAGX is on track to expand its distribution of Celadrin to Costco from 200 to 400 warehouse stores nationwide. The Company’s BioGuard™ product is still in a trial program in 55 BJ’s [Costco?] stores in the Pacific Northwest. Walgreens continues to carry IAGX’s products and we expect more stores will pick up the Company’s products over the coming quarters. TV advertising campaigns are rolling out to support a pick up in sales of these products." (There is no date on this page, but I vaguely recall it appeared near Christmas, not sure. This looks like a generic web page address, so maybe the contents will change over time.)

And here's the annual and quarterly IAGX revenue statement for those interested: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=iagx.ob

simla

12-02-2010, 12:59 PM

News from Korea. Salivarius K12 status just changed from "under investigation" to "companion". Does that mean it has been approved? http://www.foodnara.go.kr/integ/jsp/hfi/mat_apply_situation_view.jsp?nowPage=15&values=&columns=subject/content&couplers=and&formats=c&operators=like&classId=G001003003&seq=1&num=433.0

There are lots of other substances that have "companion" status as well as lots that have "recognition" status. I just could not find out the meaning of it through the language problems. ("Geomtojung" is "under investigation", I believe.) http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ko&u=http://www.foodnara.go.kr/integ/jsp/hfi/mat_apply_situation_list.jsp%3Fcouplers%3Dand%26co lumns%3Dsubject/content%26values%3D%26formats%3Dc%26operators%3Dli ke%26nowPage%3D12&ei=K5B0S4X2CdSinQejxcm8CQ&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CCsQ7gEwCTgo&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%25EB%25B0%2598%25EB%25A0%25A4%2Bsite :www.foodnara.go.kr%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D4 0

South Korea has 50 million people.

simla

12-02-2010, 04:53 PM

These people seem to have their gum for sale now - the "coming soon" has gone:http://www.natvd.com/en/online-shop/cultured-care.html . And http://twitter.com/CulturedCare says they are shipping the free gum now. So that seems to be off the blocks.

It's been a fair week for Blis watchers. The gum is for sale probably. The Bioguard results seem promising. The Koreans may have approved K12 (although we'll have to see, but the status definitely changed.) And heartening to realise 13 products have hit the market in the last 4 or 5 months.

Which would explain why there are very few bids or offers on the market! Of course, none of that news is in hard dollars. For that, we wait.

caesar

12-02-2010, 10:03 PM

Three posts in one day?

First post was at morning tea time, second post at lunch time, and third post at afternoon tea time.

I dont know what my point is here. But yeah, Im also hoping that Blis is my financial savioiur in the current financial crisis.

Im either going to be dirty rich or dirt poor. The blis price is either going to crash big time or its going to boom big time.

But I reckon its on the up, up, up.... $$$ bling $$$ bling $$$ ka ching

simla

13-02-2010, 12:49 PM

Hey! I've got an investment in Blis, and I don't mind doing research work to make sure there aren't the wrong surprises out there. Which happily doesn't seem to be the case so far.

brucea

13-02-2010, 02:24 PM

Hey! I've got an investment in Blis, and I don't mind doing research work to make sure there aren't the wrong surprises out there. Which happily doesn't seem to be the case so far.
Well done Simla and Emearg for all the research you guys do! I thought I was passionate about Blis, but I am no match for you two. Keep up the good work, even if it means giving up those work breaks.....let's hope you are rewarded in the future by a healthy Blis sp.

simla

14-02-2010, 04:24 PM

Thanks, Brucea. Researching is indeed some work. I'm watching pretty closely at present because Blis is now active in many places, and this is our first chance to really see whether Blis can find a place in the market.

But researching is not as much work as actually doing the stuff we find reported! This week, we seem to have had news that Blis has probably successfully launched as a chewing gum, has probably opened into another large country, has probably successfully launched into a major retail chain, and we know it has been taken up by a string of manufacturers. (Most of which still needs to be confirmed by later announcements, of course.)

We shareholders are so lucky to have so much competence at work in this company. Once again, I express my gratitude to all those working on behalf of Blis.

simla

15-02-2010, 09:53 AM

Sorry to have yet more to add, but availability of CulturedCare gum implies Canada is also now okay with Blis.

And indeed Fit Foods says, http://www.fitfoods.ca/aboutus/news-10-26-2009.html "Fit Foods, Canada's largest distributor of sports nutrition and healthy lifestyle products, has attained the exclusive rights to distribute Nature's Plus products in Canada" and their website includes Animal Parade Tooth Fairy and Inner Ear: http://www.fitfoods.ca/resources/downloads.html . Further, Animal Parade Tooth Fairy is listed at this Canadian site http://www.natures-source.ca/product.php?productid=1855

Canada has a population of 32 million. If Canada is now open to Blis, then Blis has regulatory access in the US (309m), Japan (130m), Canada (32m), Taiwan? (22m), Australia (21m), Ireland (6m) and NZ (4m) = 524 million people. Add perhaps S Korea (50m) and get 574m. Plus various internet sites around the world. They have excellent market size now. Then the interesting question is: what market penetration, now and in future?

simla

15-02-2010, 09:58 PM

Hey, I don't suppose all you of guys are actually just one person using a lot of aliases and you've gone away on holiday?

simla

16-02-2010, 08:10 AM

I'm mildly surprised at the muted reaction because I think that this week's news from the net searches has been something of a departure. Previously all the news has been about what is developing and WILL happen sometime, whereas this news was what probably IS happening NOW.

That's a major development in where the company has reached, in my mind, and I've been pretty excited to see it. That's all NOW news, instead of LATER news. Many of the company's plans are becoming actualities in front of our eyes.

Sure, the above posts have all been circumstantial news, so we need revenue statements later to tell us whether it comes to anything that adds up. But we've had evidence that sales in Costco are probably going okay and are still continuing after nearly 5 months anyway. We've probably had K12 launched in gum, it's first non-tablet form, which may have a wide market. We've had a string of manufacturers open for this half. We seem to have had Canada opened. And we have some evidence Korea is now available, and we've already been told a company is ready to move there if so. The move to multiple countries unfolding. The move to high volume sales formats unfolding. The move to attractive product formats unfolding.

Anyway, that's just my interpretation of what happened, and you may disagree. No doubt some will think this is all just news as usual.

No doubt others will comment when ready. As I say, the muted reaction probably represents a lot of people enjoying summer instead. But I would like to know whether anyone feels this adds up to anything we should be heartened by, or is just another collection of developments that could mean anything.

Vtrader

16-02-2010, 08:59 AM

Simla, I read much more than I write. On the enthusiasm of this thread alone I am having a total loss dabble in BLT and some NZX others. Slowly gaining experience, from the knowledge and discussions here. Your posts are not being challenged by others, we can but anticipate BLT will confirm your optimism. Your contributions here are valuable keep it up... V.

simla

16-02-2010, 09:45 AM

Thanks for the feedback, Vtrader. I periodically make a post reminding people that I am never recommending anyone buys, sells, or trades BLT. That's always for each to decide themselves. And neither do I recommend any other NZX investment on the back of BLT. In fact it would be interesting to hear what other companies people feel are performing as efficiently as BLT appear to be doing presently.

Not trying to put you off, just reminding anyone that each still has to make their own personal choices! I think this forum is valuable for the exchange of views on publicly available information basically. It's really valuable to hear how other people interpret things, or news that people have found on the net or otherwise.

Good luck. Obviously I am personally hopeful of BLT's future, but it's just my opinion!

Bobby_Fischer

16-02-2010, 01:18 PM

An interesting document, clearly a BLIS internal (marketing?) publication which has leaked (how?/why?) on to the web, can be found here: http://www.ultraprobioticsplus.com/docs/Clinicaltrialsummary.pdf

This sheds some light on happenings behind the scenes with BLIS' earlier signalled, but never reported clinical trials. Those readers who have followed BLIS for a long time will remember these trials, others will probably not be aware they ever took place. So: What happened with the BLIS Tonsilitis study (preliminary results suggested a significant benefit from K12, but Clinical staff at Otago ENT Dept. reassigned to other duties prior to completion of study - I suspect that's code for "BLIS ran out of money prior to completing the trial"); What happened/is happening with the BLIS Otitis Media study (preliminary results suggested 50% benefit after K12 dosing vs placebo, studies now being conducted on an infant formula delivery system by Nestle in France - is this more optimistic on a positive outcome than what has so far been reported?); What happened to the BLIS Dental Caries study being done at Otage Dental School (significant reduction in plaque score for those taking BLIS MIA vs. placebo - pending journal publication - not sure if M18 and MIA are different names for the same bacterial strain).

Some interesting food for thought there.

The "Ultra Probiotic" product may or may not contain BLIS strains - can't find anywhere where they give a break down. I'm inclined to think not though (or not at this time), since various other strains are mentioned.

brucea

16-02-2010, 02:19 PM

I recall reading somewhere that MIA strain was renamed M18 - no doubt I will be corrected if I am wrong. What intrigues me is that some of their streptococcus strains have been reported as having activity against certain fungi (eg thrush or candida) and other skin infections. If Blis comes out with a successful product (or better still get others to develop this), this would open a huge potential market for them....

Bobby_Fischer

16-02-2010, 02:47 PM

Sounds plausible - "MIA" may have unfortunate conotations from a marketing point of view.

Further to my post above - can't find any evidence that Ultra Probiotic is actually "on market" - the site must be prepared, waiting (domain was registered 19/08/09).

Brucea - where did you hear about the anti-fungal properties of Streptococci? Or are you thinking about their Micrococcus Luteus probiotic? It is good that they have a pipeline for the future.

brucea

16-02-2010, 03:20 PM

Sounds plausible Brucea - where did you hear about the anti-fungal properties of Streptococci? Or are you thinking about their Micrococcus Luteus probiotic? It is good that they have a pipeline for the future.

Hi Bobby, I have found the references to the Blis streptococcus and candida that I mentioned in my previous post: There is an article available on the web from Springer Science taken from Probiotics & Antimicro. Prot. DOI 10.1007/s12602-009-9026-7 titled "Something Old and Something New: An Update on the Amazing Repertoire of Bacteriocins Produced by Streptococcus salivarius" by Philip A. Wescombe • Nicholas C. K. Heng • Jeremy P. Burton • John R. Tagg

"On the other hand, the depletion of S. salivarius numbers is often associated with unbalanced overgrowth of Candida spp. or anaerobes, as occurs in maladies such as oral thrush [36], halitosis [31, 37], and Sjogren’s Syndrome [38]."
and further on:
"As yet uncharacterized inhibitory activity against Candida albicans and certain Gram-negative bacteria has been detected in vitro (Unpublished)."

Very interesting!

Bobby_Fischer

16-02-2010, 03:30 PM

Good find Brucea. There seem to be untold applications (if you read the clinical studies document you will also see BLIS are in the middle of a study into anti-arthritic potential of K12!) - and it looks more and more that BLIS will eventually have the financial resources to exploit all this potential.

The more I look, the more the "ultra probiotic" from Acumen Labs appears to be a rebadging of the Natures Plus Ultra Probiotic (comparing the bacterial strains mentioned on the Clinical data section of the ultraprobioticsplus website and the Natures Plus product description). Interesting - is it a "rip off"? But if so how did they come upon a BLIS internal document?

brucea

16-02-2010, 06:48 PM

[QUOTE=Bobby_Fischer;293613]Good find Brucea. There seem to be untold applications (if you read the clinical studies document you will also see BLIS are in the middle of a study into anti-arthritic potential of K12!) - and it looks more and more that BLIS will eventually have the financial resources to exploit all this potential.

Hi Bobby - I have sent you a private message using the Sharetrader mail - Brucea

emearg

16-02-2010, 07:20 PM

Well done Simla and Emearg for all the research you guys do! I thought I was passionate about Blis, but I am no match for you two. Keep up the good work, even if it means giving up those work breaks.....let's hope you are rewarded in the future by a healthy Blis sp.

No worries Brucea. Happy to (try to) help...

emearg

16-02-2010, 07:22 PM

emearg

16-02-2010, 07:24 PM

Hey, I don't suppose all you of guys are actually just one person using a lot of aliases and you've gone away on holiday?

I was away for a few days but got back on Sunday night. Does that explain it? I reckon it doesn't...

emearg

16-02-2010, 07:26 PM

emearg

16-02-2010, 07:29 PM

emearg

16-02-2010, 07:37 PM

Natures Plus have released another seven products containing Blis K12 and Blis M18

Several of them only have very small quantities, but it is interesting (and excellent in my opinion) to see the ingredients making it into more and more products.

Several of them are very similar looking, but are in different formats. I guess Natures Plus package a product concept in different ways to appeal to consumers with different requirements?

That said, a new product is a new product...

Here is the updated products list:

K12:
Natures Plus - Adult's Ear, Nose & Throat Lozenges with K12 Probiotics -- Tropical Cherry
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productdetail.asp?criteria=search&searchVar=49254&productnumber=49254&category=28

Natures Plus - Animal Parade® Children's Chewable Inner Ear Support
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productdetail.asp?criteria=search&searchVar=29949&productnumber=29949&category=12

Swanson - Ultra Oral Probiotic
http://www.swansonvitamins.com/SWU519/ItemDetail?n=0

Imagenetix - Bioguard
http://bioguardhealth.com/

Solaray - Oral Flora
http://www.smartbomb.com/slr12698.html

VegLife - Ear, Nose & Throat Shield
http://www.vitaminlife.com/product-exec/product_id/57807/nm/Ear+Nose+and+Throat+Shield

LEF - Advanced Oral Hygiene
http://www.lef.org/Vitamins-Supplements/Item01300/Advanced-Oral-Hygiene.html

Biogenesis - Pro Flora Oral Health Chewables
http://www.bio-genesis.com/productpages/pro-flora-oral-health/pro-flora-oral-health.html

Epoca
http://www.takachanmarket.com/products/detail.php?product_id=17325

Ear, Nose & Throat Defense
http://drsinatra.net/Products2.aspx?ProductID=BL12

True Botanicas - True Defense for Kids™
http://www.truebotanica.com/store/product/TDR1001/TrueDefenseforKids.aspx

Cultured Care - Probiotic Gum
http://culturedcare.com/

KForce

Aktiv-k12

Blis Throat Guard Daily
http://blis.co.nz/?go=Consumers&c=BLIS-Products&p=Throat-Guard-Daily

Blis Throat Guard Boost
http://blis.co.nz/?go=Consumers&c=BLIS-Products&p=Throat-Guard-Boost

Blis Travel Guard
http://blis.co.nz/?go=Consumers&c=BLIS-Products&p=Travel-Guard

Blis Bio Restore
http://blis.co.nz/?go=Consumers&c=BLIS-Products&p=Bio-Restore

Blis Fresh Breath Kit
http://blis.co.nz/?go=Consumers&c=BLIS-Products&p=Fresh-Breath-Kit

Blis Rapid Eze Gargle
http://blis.co.nz/?go=Consumers&c=BLIS-Products&p=Rapid-EZE-Gargle

M18:
Natures Plus - Animal Parade® Tooth Fairy™ Children’s Chewable Dental Probiotic
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productdetail.asp?criteria=search&searchVar=29948&productnumber=29948&category=12

Natures Plus - Adult’s Dental Care Probiotic Lozenges - Peppermint
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productdetail.asp?criteria=search&searchVar=4383&productnumber=4383&category=22

Includes K12 and M18:
Natures Plus - Whole Food Total Body Cleanse with Açai (Vegetarian Capsules)
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productdetail.asp?productNumber=1120

Natures Plus Ultra Lipoic™ Bi-Layered Mini-Tab
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productdetail.asp?criteria=search&searchVar=5224&productnumber=5224&category=29

Natures Plus Ultra Lipoic™ Bi-Layered Tablets
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productdetail.asp?criteria=search&searchVar=5220&productnumber=5220&category=29

Natures Plus Ultra Probiotics Vegetarian Capsules
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productdetail.asp?productNumber=4385

Natures Plus POWER TEEN® For Him Chewable Multi - Wild Berry
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productDetail.asp?criteria=search&searchVar=30002&productnumber=30002&category=11

Natures Plus POWER TEEN® For Her Chewable Multi - Wild Berry
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productDetail.asp?criteria=search&searchVar=30004&productnumber=30004&category=11

Natures Plus POWER TEEN® Immune Booster Chewable Multi - Wild Berry
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/whatsnewShell.asp?criteria=search&whatsnew=yes&searchVar=30006&productNumber=30006&category=11

Natures Plus Source of Life® GOLD Tablets
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productDetail.asp?criteria=search&searchVar=30711&productnumber=30711&category=15

Natures Plus Source of Life® GOLD Vcaps
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productDetail.asp?criteria=search&searchVar=30716&productnumber=30716&category=15

Natures Plus Source of Life® GOLD Mini-Tabs
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/productDetail.asp?criteria=search&searchVar=30714&productnumber=30714&category=15

Natures Plus Source of Life® GOLD Shake - Tropical Berry
http://www.naturesplus.com/products/whatsnewShell.asp?criteria=search&whatsnew=yes&searchVar=30748&productNumber=30748&category=15

brucea

16-02-2010, 08:46 PM

Thanks Emearg for the update - I note that the NaturePlus site refers to something called "BlemiShield™ Complex" and says " Meanwhile, BlemiShield’s cranberry extract and probiotics (K12 and M18) support natural defenses for a healthier, clearer complexion, while protecting the inner ear, teeth and gums." But there is no further info on Google about "BlemiShield". Can anyone shed any light on this? Is it NaturePlus's own product ingredient or something they get elsewhere?

brucea

16-02-2010, 08:53 PM

The product label says" BlemiShield™ Complex – 35 mg †
Cranberry (Vaccinium macrocarpon), S. salivarius M18, S. salivarius K12 (1 billion viable cells at time of manufacture). It is not clear whether the BlemiShield is just the cranberry extract and the M18 and K12 are just separate additions... but then again maybe they are part of the product - quite confusing....

simla

16-02-2010, 09:12 PM

Well, the Nature's Plus news sure opens out the question of possible sales revenue for the year! And it also fits into the "happening now" idea too.

1. I cannot see any possible way of reading this as bad news.

2. Surely Nature's Plus must be making good sales of K12 and M18 to be bringing out yet more products?

3. I wouldn't mind owning shares in Nature's Plus. They're a switched on outfit. (And Businessweek reports the CEO as being aged 69.)

4. Notice how VERY much more confident the sales blurb has become, again suggesting sales are going well. The older Tooth Fairy only says, "may reduce the risk of tooth decay!".

But the new Power Teen For Her says, "Armed with an explosion of Wild Berry flavor, Power Teen® for Her is the ultimate young women’s high-potency multivitamin supplement. Its unique Feminine Complex includes cranberry, fenugreek and wild yam extracts to promote urinary tract health, breast health and healthy hormone balance. Meanwhile, BlemiShield’s cranberry extract and probiotics (K12 and M18) support natural defenses for a healthier, clearer complexion, while protecting the inner ear, teeth and gums." Who wouldn't buy that!

5. Has GRAS been awarded perhaps?? If so, a whole new ballpark. Consider: Source of Life® GOLD Shake - Tropical Berry is surely to be used in a milk shake? And the Source of Life® GOLD Mini-Tabs says, "the ultimate multi-vitamin supplement with concentrated whole foods!" Are those foods or not? Hard to say.

6. Brucea, you're point on BlemiShield's "a healthier, clearer complexion" is also echoed in the Power Teen. This seems to be a new front for K12/M18?

Once again, Nature's Plus have shown considerable ability to design saleable products. Blis is attracting some talented marketing power.

simla

16-02-2010, 09:15 PM

Well, I thought the news was good already this week, but that Nature's Plus development suggests things are going pretty well on that front too.

And yet also, the following are still in the air for this financial year, possibly. In the last half report http://blis.co.nz/userfiles/file/Sept%2009%20Half%20Year%20Report.pdf :

Other countries:
"In conjunction with Frutarom, the Company is also developing other business opportunities identified in Europe, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, South East Asia and Australia, which it anticipates will generate initial sales in the current financial year."

Other Asian manufacturers:
"It is anticipated that further products will soon be released in Japan and in other North Asian markets."

Food:
In the rights issue documents (around March 09) http://www.blis.co.nz/userfiles/file/Notice_of_Special_Meeting_Final_13032009.pdf it said:
"The Company remains on target to achieve its 2009 sales strategy of developing six top tier nutraceutical manufacturers, one major food manufacturer and one OTC pharmacy manufacturer into the Company’s customers by the end of 2009."
"A major food company in Taiwan had previously been in the initial stages of development of food and oral healthcare product applications for BLIS K12 but due to a change in the company’s priorities this did not result in the earlier anticipated release of new products in late 2008. However, the Company is now in the process of continuing with these and other projects through Frutarom."
In July, the AGM presentation http://www.blis.co.nz/userfiles/file/BLIS%20AGM%202009%20Presentationl%2031%20July%2009 .pptx said, "In discussion with major food company".
In the half report of November, though, they said, "GRAS status is required to commence marketing developments in the food sector." But Cannibal found this a while ago, http://www.fda.gov/Food/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation/GuidanceDocuments/FoodIngredientsandPackaging/ucm061846.htm "Our goal is to respond to most GRAS notices within 180 days", which would probably make the Gras due in a few months at most, assuming the application went in in November. (Does the Nature's Plus news imply news on this front already though, as discussed above??)

M18:
In the last half report, it said, "During the period the Company launched BLIS M18, with immediate sales to two customers in the US", and "The Company expects to formally launch the BLIS M18 to the broader dietary supplements market early in 2010."

simla

16-02-2010, 10:18 PM

You're on to something with that BlemiShield trademark, Brucea. I wonder who owns the trademark: Nature's Plus, Frutarom, Blis, or someone else?

emearg

16-02-2010, 10:50 PM

Has GRAS been awarded perhaps?? If so, a whole new ballpark. Consider: Source of Life® GOLD Shake - Tropical Berry is surely to be used in a milk shake? And the Source of Life® GOLD Mini-Tabs says, "the ultimate multi-vitamin supplement with concentrated whole foods!" Are those foods or not? Hard to say.

Surely Blis being granted GRAS would require an announcement to the market?

It would be very significant!

emearg

16-02-2010, 10:57 PM

M18:
In the last half report, it said, "During the period the Company launched BLIS M18, with immediate sales to two customers in the US", and "The Company expects to formally launch the BLIS M18 to the broader dietary supplements market early in 2010."

We have yet to find a product from the other manufacturer.

I wonder how long the period of exclusivity with Natures Plus lasts/lasted?

Only time (or perhaps an announcement from Blis) will tell...

Bobby_Fischer

17-02-2010, 09:13 AM

5. Has GRAS been awarded perhaps??

It would seem not, as a list of ingredients granted US GRAS status can be found here http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/fcn/fcnNavigation.cfm?rpt=grasListing and Streptococcus Salivarius appears nowhere (that I can see).

simla

17-02-2010, 10:56 AM

Thanks Bobby, I've been looking for that page. Curious that K12 is not listed on it as either approved or pending. The page leading to it says it only gets updated monthly, too.

brucea

17-02-2010, 01:37 PM

I downloaded the 114 pages of Gras exemption claim that Nestle submitted in 2000 (and approved in 2002) for the use of Bifidobacterium, Lactobacillus and Streptococcus thermophilus in infant formula and the expert statements. Given that Nestle have been working with Blis on possible use of K12 in infant formula it would seem likely that Nestle will do much of this detailed preparation work. There were over 40 pages of references to supporting journal articles! This suggests we can expect the Gras approval to be a slow and measured process.

brucea

17-02-2010, 01:48 PM

There was another GRAS approval document ubmitted by Nestle on the same subject matter - even more detailed at 300 pages!

simla

17-02-2010, 09:24 PM

This is a little odd. This search used to return about 50 stores stocking Bioguard, but currently it is only returning about 40. Are they running out of stock (good), or deciding not to stock (presumably not so good)? http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bioguard+site:www.syntaxsys.com One store selling it, however, is here in Alaska http://www.mapquest.com/maps?address=4125+DeBarr+Rd&city=Anchorage&state=AK&country=us . Move the slider bar on the left down to the bottom.

In Japan, though, Epoca seems to be available on more sites, but check out the photo of the 6 month supply (for 28,350 Japanese Yen, or NZD$445) http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://www.kusurishop.co.jp/SHOP/epoca40-6m.html

simla

18-02-2010, 10:26 AM

Out of interest, I rang 4 different stores in Seattle (mid-cityish), and spoke to the pharmacy section (there appear to be no general enquiry numbers.) One had not heard of it, but when pressed, looked it up and said they did have it in stock. One said she did not know of it, but I did not press her further. Two said they knew they did not have it. I also rang Portland. He had not heard of it, but looked it up and then said they stocked it.

So still not clear, except that it does not seem to be the talk of the town yet! Only 2 out of 5 had personally heard of it, even though they worked there. 2 stores stocked it, 2 did not apparently, and the other maybe.

So I think we better wait and see where that one is going still.

Bobby_Fischer

18-02-2010, 10:46 AM

Ringing them up - I admire your determination Simla!

I went to the Celadrin store locator and drilled down to city level for the six states (Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Washington, Utah and Alaska), which have previously shown up in the Google search you've used (have occasionally been running a similar search myself, which has shown more page hits previously than it does now). I counted 59 Costco stores across those 6 states - all of which, apparently, stock both Celadrin and Bioguard. I didn't check for double counting (i.e. there may be some Costco stores listed under several cities if they are out of town and close to more than one city), but let's assume there is none, then 59 stores may suggest a modest expansion from the original roll-out.

So how come the Google search misses some stores? My guess is that when the google Bot. last crawled the syntaxsys site, some pages were missed. If you search as follows:

bioguard Wenatchee site:www.syntaxsys.com

nothing is found, yet the store locator brings up a Costco store stocking Bioguard in "East wenatchee".

I guess you can't always rely on Google.

Also interesting to note that Celadrin is not stocked by Costco in all states, so in the short term that may limit the rate of Bioguard penetration, unless they can open further channels. Mind you, Costco may not have a presence in all states?

simla

18-02-2010, 11:14 AM

Ringing them up - I admire your determination Simla!

Yes, the extra arm movement, compared to moving the mouse, has quite tired me out!

Thanks for doing the extra work and getting the explanation on the google search.

simla

18-02-2010, 11:03 PM

You might be on to something about a small expansion, Bobby.

The last half report talked of, "a 50 store sales trial in the Pacific Northwest of the US." You counted 59 stores. But Utah is not in the Pacific Northwest, and Costco seems to have 9 stores there. Or alternately, the Bioguardinfo blog said on Jan 16 http://bioguardinfo.blogspot.com/2010/01/bioguard-4-off.html, "only currently being carried at Costco's in Washington, Oregon and Utah while it's on trial" (assuming that was accurate), whereas you counted six states.

Either way, there is the possibility that the number of stores and states has grown maybe?

simla

19-02-2010, 08:13 PM

You know, a small increase in store numbers, if we have read that right, is quite heartening. And a cautious expansion may be just that - cautious - or maybe it could also mean that they are flat tack keeping up? They are supplying quite a number of other products as well. As always, only time will tell us.

emearg

20-02-2010, 04:20 PM

Hard to know what to make of the Costco/BioGuard situation...

I mentioned a few weeks back that Prof Tagg is apparently doing a study about women receiving Blis K12 late in their pregnancy so the good bacteria is passed on to their newly born babies.
Here is video with Prof Tagg:
http://culturedcare.com/2010/02/19/blis-k12-probiotic-gum-during-pregnancy-protects-babys-health/

More information about the new 'True Defense' product/s:
http://www.biztimes.com/news/2010/2/19/innovations-new-pro-biotic-provides-natural-alternatives

A very interesting read about Oral Probiotics
http://www.ijqhw.net/index.php/jom/article/viewFile/1949/2253

brucea

20-02-2010, 08:00 PM

Thanks Emearg for you latest links. Enthusiastic comment that the True Defense medical owners say viz "“We’ve taken a very holistic approach to producing this product, its strong enough for adults but gentle enough for children and we could not be happier with the results we’ve seen so far,” Rentea said. “Throughout our testing we haven’t found a more comprehensive, more innovative product.”

simla

21-02-2010, 10:41 AM

I agree the Bioguard situation is hard to read, but I'm not so sure it is quite so hard to read in conjunction with all the new products.

For example, why was CulturedCare seemingly delayed (initially December was suggested, wasn't it?) One explanation could have been getting hold of the K12?

As you know, I'm currently interested in whether we mightn't be in a "happening now" situation. If so, then there is only one real question: are the factory(s) flat out supplying raw product? (Is the US supplier now in operation? Is there another factory elsewhere even?)

So, yes, we do not know how any given product is doing. But we know there are a lot of products, and we know that more are due to open in Asia soon. And people like Bioguard, Nature's Plus and True Defense are obviously keen to get product out the door. Is it not possible that the factory(s) are going flat stick?

If so, then we are sitting here in summer having our thoughts, while others are sitting in the boiler room struggling to feed the furnace! It might even require some solid work on cashflow as well. As usual, we'll find out later.

By the way, have you seen this twitter on the gum http://twitter.com/PrairieNaturals/status/9260504518, "Received my probie gum(mango-guava) from @culturedcare taste better than expected. texture good, not sticky". That's promising. Also http://www.facebook.com/prairie.naturals?ref=search&sid=545833310.2087442031..1 ,"Our new CulturedCare Probiotic Gum has been shipped to retailers who pre-ordered.... Should be on shelves this week! Seen a display yet? How's it look?".

So the gum is off to a promising start seemingly.

emearg

21-02-2010, 01:18 PM

I agree the Bioguard situation is hard to read, but I'm not so sure it is quite so hard to read in conjunction with all the new products.

For example, why was CulturedCare seemingly delayed (initially December was suggested, wasn't it?) One explanation could have been getting hold of the K12?

No, I emailed them a while back and they were still waiting/hoping for regulatory approval. That is what delayed them.

As you know, I'm currently interested in whether we mightn't be in a "happening now" situation. If so, then there is only one real question: are the factory(s) flat out supplying raw product? (Is the US supplier now in operation? Is there another factory elsewhere even?)

This would also be bad news. Blis has been talking about getting another supplied of the raw K12 for 18 months or two years? If they haven't been able to achieve that goal, and have now reached production capacity that would be a very poor sign of Blis's management ability. I really hope this isn't the case!

By the way, have you seen this twitter on the gum http://twitter.com/PrairieNaturals/status/9260504518, "Received my probie gum(mango-guava) from @culturedcare taste better than expected. texture good, not sticky". That's promising. Also http://www.facebook.com/prairie.naturals?ref=search&sid=545833310.2087442031..1 ,"Our new CulturedCare Probiotic Gum has been shipped to retailers who pre-ordered.... Should be on shelves this week! Seen a display yet? How's it look?".

So the gum is off to a promising start seemingly.

But will people buy it? It is really expensive! About $400 Canadian for a years supply. That is several times the price if you were to buy lozenge based products. That said, perhaps people will as it is a specialty product and people are used to paying through the nose for those.

More competition in the gum department would bring down prices and make the gum more attractive to a wider market. At the moment it looks like CulturedCare are taking advantage of their monopoly position. I presume there is nothing to stop another outfit hopping into bed with Tab Labs and producing their own version?

simla

21-02-2010, 01:39 PM

I've seen more positive posts, Emearg! Personally I would prefer the factory to be at it's limit than that we still have a whole lot of capacity to spare on the first and only plant. (Agreed, good planning would be even better than that.)

As to the price of the gum, it depends how much people normally spend on gum. I don't smoke and have not kept up on cigarette prices. But the guy in front of me at the supermarket the other day cheerfully bought one packet of cigarettes for $12 I think, and didn't seem to think twice about it. And it relates to dental prices too, which seem to me to be hundreds of dollars a year per person if you actually need fillings etc.

emearg

21-02-2010, 02:00 PM

I'm not here for my good looks or positivity! That is what we have you for Simla! ;-)

I don't agree. I would prefer the factory still has spare capacity if there is only one factory. Telling customers they can't be supplied is a terrible thing!

All that said I doubt very much this is the case. I think Barry is far more capable than that!

Smokes are addictive. Most smokers will buy them no matter the price. Blis K12 isn't addictive and is optional. I do agree it may be money well spent and I back this opinion up by having a daily dose all year round. But I did shop round and picked one of the cheaper options...

simla

21-02-2010, 07:09 PM

I often wonder why I'm so optimistic too. K12's journey from the test tube to a recognised additive available world wide is a huge journey, as unlikely as the travels of Kupe. But Kupe (or someone) did in fact make it. And when I look to the heavens in this journey, I see the right stars overhead, every time - we always seem to be travelling in the right direction.

Good point about addictive smokers. I sort of tend to assume gum is addictive too, but I admit I don't understand why people take gum.

emearg

22-02-2010, 02:21 PM

Kathryn Ryan interviewed Sir Eion Edgar on Radio New Zealand National this morning. As you may recall he is one of the two chaps that underwrote last years preference shares. Blis was mentioned but the interview isn't about Blis!
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/national/ntn/2010/02/22/feature_guest_-_sir_eion_edgar

I received my pack of CulturedCare Probiotic Gum in the mail this morning. I will have a piece tonight before bed (as you do) and let you know tomorrow what it is like. Has anybody else received any? Any thoughts?

Bobby_Fischer

22-02-2010, 02:46 PM

Heh, I was just about to post something about the Ryan interview, but you beat me to it emearg. His comments about Blis are made at 23:50 approx. He said two things which I found interesting:

WRT Blis investment, "A bigger risk than seemed prudent", but a little later, "looks like the rewards could be there" (refering possibly to both Blis and PEB in the last remark).

emearg

22-02-2010, 04:18 PM

Sorry Bobby but I did give you a few hours to win that race!

Kathryn refers to Blis as the "highly rated Blis Technologie out of Dunedin." Who has Kathryn been talking to to determine Blis is highly rated? Simla perhaps? ;-)

According to my ears the quote from EE is "...but I've also had a go at some of the, as you say, the Blis, Pebbles, been prepared to take a, perhaps a bigger risk than one that is prudent but today they seem to working alright" and like you say BF, he goes on later to say "looks like the rewards could be there"

EE and his business partner have until the end of March to buy another million preference shares at the original terms. I wonder if they will? Do they have a million bucks spare? Nice way to turn in into 2.6million (on paper at least).

Bobby_Fischer

22-02-2010, 05:21 PM

Sorry Bobby but I did give you a few hours to win that race!

I'm still trying to get over the RSI from last weeks Store Locator scan ...

Kathryn refers to Blis as the "highly rated Blis Technologie out of Dunedin." Who has Kathryn been talking to to determine Blis is highly rated? Simla perhaps? ;-)

I thought it was a bit hyperbolic of her ... but I doubt Simla would disagree!

EE and his business partner have until the end of March to buy another million preference shares at the original terms. I wonder if they will? Do they have a million bucks spare? Nice way to turn in into 2.6million (on paper at least).

First thing I checked on after the interview - they actually have until 08 May - 12 months after the RI conditions were agreed to by shareholders. It is a vote of confidence if they do take up their option, but it will significantly dilute us smaller holders if they do. Damned if they do, damned if they don't.

FWIW I agree with your views earlier regarding production capacity. I sincerely hope they have alternative suppliers by now. Not only because they may need to ramp up supply quickly to meet demand (let us hope they do), but also because they cannot afford to have a single point of failure - at this point it could destroy the company if something broke.

simla

22-02-2010, 10:47 PM

Thanks for the link to the interview. He didn't say much about BLT, naturally, but nevertheless he didn't sound like he'd heard any bad news, which is good here in late February. And he's obviously both very able and very generous.

emearg

23-02-2010, 03:31 PM

Well I tried the CC gum last night. It is nice. I enjoying chewing it for the first couple of minutes and then like most gum it pretty much lost it's flavour.

Unfortunately in this case I'm not really much of a gum person so I'm probably not the ideal test subject.

Kids on the other hand will probably like it as they tend to like gum.

For me I will stick to lozenges. They usually take about 30 minutes to dissolve in my mouth which seems like an excellent period of time to allow all my new bacteria friends to make a nice home on my tongue. I suspect many kids probably demolish them in mere seconds so perhaps gum is better for them?

simla

23-02-2010, 10:08 PM

Thanks for pursuing that, Emearg. It's reassuring to know that it is a good product, now leaving open only the question of how many people will want it.

By the way, this little gem has shown up on the searches: "Blis K12 Travel Guard Lozenges 24's - Used." Perhaps the second-hand market is a whole new avenue for future expansion!

Cannibal

24-02-2010, 07:51 PM

New press release from Imagenetix - all good...

We have just received regional “in club” orders from the largest U.S. club warehouse for our most recent product (http://www.cancer-health.info/?tag=product), BioGuard(TM). BioGuard(TM) is a clinically proven pro-biotic uniquely designed for ear, nose, throat and immune system protection. This new innovative brand is designed to provide around the clock natural protection of the ear, nose and throat, the gateway to many illnesses. The strawberry flavored chewable tablet can be taken by all family members. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you will be able to purchase BioGuard(TM) at the area’s leading club warehouses starting in the beginning of October. Assuming a successful regional test, a nationwide launch could start as early as the first calendar quarter of 2010.

http://www.cancer-health.info/?p=20149

weasel

24-02-2010, 09:02 PM

simla

25-02-2010, 09:28 PM

Them's the breaks, Cannibal. I appreciate your research, so keep it up. I've never forgotten one particular piece you found, and it certainly still bears repeating: "In 2007, Americans spent nearly $6.7 billion on mouth-freshening products, according to the market-research firm Euromonitor International." Sure is food for thought.

brucea

26-02-2010, 05:39 PM

I mentioned to a friend of mine that I had bought the Nature's Plus Dental Care probiotic lozenges from the States and my ongoing interest in Blis over the years. She asked her GP and dentist about using this and was advised to go ahead as they were both very interested to read about this product on the net. I am getting more for myself and she has asked to "piggyback" on my order to reduce air freight costs. I suspect word of mouth will be a big part of the public becoming aware of this probiotic! So guys, spread the word!

simla

01-03-2010, 07:51 PM

Yeah, that's where it gets interesting, Brucea. What will word of mouth be like in the end, given that Blis does not actually promise to stop anything, only to tilt the balance in your favour (as I understand it anyway.) There is an extra review on the Costco site now from a man and wife who took it for a month and still got bad coughs and colds, and gave it the thumbs down. How do you decide if that's fair comment? After all, some places in the US have accumulated a massive 80 inches of snow this winter, with more to come, so total protection was a pretty big ask. And we've had similar discussions here recently about what it means when you take it and get a sore throat anyway.

My own accumulated experience is that it has considerably reduced colds in our household from previous levels. From comments, others on this group feel the same way. And the Bioguard blog just said the same thing, http://bioguardinfo.blogspot.com/2010/02/still-ok.html

But people always make up their own minds. Presumably all probiotics suffer from the problem of how you prove that they did or did not have any effect in your own particular case.

Bobby_Fischer

03-03-2010, 11:20 AM

I see the $4 discount on Bioguard at Costco is no longer available. Has the link to the video been added recently as well? Don't seem to recall seeing it before. If it's new it suggests continued support for the product. Just waiting for some hint that the wider store roll-out has commenced ...

Bobby_Fischer

03-03-2010, 12:39 PM

Very interesting 3 page article on Blis here: http://www.moosylvania.com/blog/file.axd?file=2009%2F11%2FNew+Nutrition+-+Nov+2009+-+Rodney+Mason+quote.pdf

The article appears to be based on an interview with the BLIS marketing guy, Grant Washington-Smith. It's dated Nov. 2009, so fairly recent , and gives a projection for FY 2010 revenue of "as much as $3m" (nearly 3 times FY 2009). Don't recall any such projection being discussed elsewhere. Is the information market sensitive (I would have thought so), in which case there ought to have been an announcement (unless the "as much as" counts as a get out)?

The article also quotes Washington-Smith as saying "a dose of K12 [stated as 17mg of active K12] adds about 4 US cents to a product". I'm assuming that's BLIS' cut. So with 75 "melt-tabs" BLIS would get $US 3 from a pack of Bioguard.

Cannibal

03-03-2010, 03:50 PM

Excellent find Bobby and excellent information contained therein. Nice job.
$3 million is a good number...
Some numbers for the number crunchers on this thread.

snackpack

03-03-2010, 04:59 PM

$3 mil into 138mil shares is 2.1 cents a share of thereabouts. Is that right?

emearg

03-03-2010, 06:21 PM

The article also quotes Washington-Smith as saying "a dose of K12 [stated as 17mg of active K12] adds about 4 US cents to a product". I'm assuming that's BLIS' cut. So with 75 "melt-tabs" BLIS would get $US 3 from a pack of Bioguard.

That is the cost to the producer of the end product and therefore the 4 cents will have to be split between Frutatrom and Blis.

simla

03-03-2010, 08:50 PM

That was a great find Bobby. And full of useful info, too. http://www.moosylvania.com/blog/file.axd?file=2009%2F11%2FNew+Nutrition+-+Nov+2009+-+Rodney+Mason+quote.pdf

Turnover this year: "to help increase turnover from NZ$1.2 million [last year]... to as much as NZ$3 million in [the 2009/2010 financial year]." Of course, this interview must have been from about October last year, so only a projection, but still gives us an idea of what they think possible.

Europe: On European approvals: (in an earlier article in the same magazine, quoting other people) "The graveyard of disallowed claims is not a pleasant place to be"... "If such a level of proof were used for drugs, most would not make it to market." Not much chance of quick progress there then, by the sound of it.

Asia: On how fast Blis might perhaps develop it's market in Asia: (from the same earlier article in the magazine, not talking about Blis in particular, other people again) "Personally I consider Asia a key future market for Fabuless [a DSM ingredient] as the speed of product development is extremely high there.”

What will be in Korea and China: (back to the Blis article again) "in both China and Korea, where the company has struck distribution and marketing agreements with local firms for Throat Guard lozenges."

On our recent discussion on whether people think Blis works: "Those that take K12 love it and we get a lot of repeat business."

Product formats: "Applications for M18 are likely to include chewing gum, toothpaste and mouthwashes."

Yoghurt: "Our yoghurt delivery system is well advanced" ... "I see greater and greater effort going into the functional food space, especially the yoghurt area. In South East Asia and Singapore we have had a lot of discussion with companies about the inclusion of K12 in yoghurt products."

A hint at a future format? "Functional candy may be another key application in the food sector."..."I see [Throat Guard] as far more akin to a functional confectionery than I do a dietary supplement" ... "I’ve seen some of the products our contract manufacturers in the States have put together and they are more akin to sweets.”

And then the big one from where I'm sitting. Does this perhaps read, you ain't seen nothing yet? Food. On food's role at Blis: "For K12 the future may lie increasingly in food and beverage products."... "BLIS has been working with the ingredient in yoghurt applications" ... "Our future is going to be in functional foods." (And if you think functional food can't appeal to people, look at this:
http://www.bordbia.ie/industryservices/alerts/PublishingImages/2009/Feb/27th%20Feb/good%20for%20me%20tea.JPG )

"Our future is going to be in functional foods." That's a strong statement. Hard not to also read that as implying plenty of expectation on future revenues, too?

emearg

03-03-2010, 09:03 PM

I see the $4 discount on Bioguard at Costco is no longer available.

It only ran for a finite period. Until the 28th Feb I think?

Has the link to the video been added recently as well? Don't seem to recall seeing it before. If it's new it suggests continued support for the product. Just waiting for some hint that the wider store roll-out has commenced ...

We discussed this several weeks ago. I agree re continued support. We are all waiting for this! Simla and others have been doing some good research. Read back a few pages for more details.

emearg

03-03-2010, 09:18 PM

"Our future is going to be in functional foods." That's a strong statement. Hard not to also read that as implying plenty of expectation on future revenues, too?

Don't forget to take all this with a few grains of salt as it IS coming from the marketing man!

That said, it all sounds pretty exciting. Well, if and when GRAS is granted it will be real exciting!

I agree with his comment about some of the lozenges being more akin to sweets. The VegLife one is very fizzy and rather yummy. Much more enjoyable than the ThroatGuard ones.

So...not much doubt they will reach my two million revenue target? That is good :-)

simla

03-03-2010, 09:59 PM

It does look promising for the full year, although all of this was back then. We'll know in 8 or 9 weeks now. I did like the "we have had a lot of discussion with companies" on yoghurt in Asia. No GRAS required there, presumably, but other permissions maybe? That would certainly be a useful front to open in the market. Wonder if anything is happening in Aus or NZ on that. Korea, Japan and Canada could perhaps be permitted for that already, too? I don't think we know it's regulatory status in Singapore, do we? So much we don't know, but so many glimpses. Hopefully we'll get a bunch of clear news in the full year report soon. There must be more news on gums sooner or later, too, now that the format is working.

Bobby_Fischer

04-03-2010, 11:07 AM

It only ran for a finite period. Until the 28th Feb I think?

We discussed this several weeks ago. I agree re continued support. We are all waiting for this! Simla and others have been doing some good research. Read back a few pages for more details.

Sorry for reposting - I see now that you made exactly the same point on Jan 16th (was on holiday at the time and must have missed it). I can't have visited the Costco page in between times and it seemed the link was new.

Surely the Costco trial is done by now? Surely it has been a success? Five months have passed and it is till on sale, now undiscounted. Given their relative market power, I suspect the trial would be all at Imaginetix's risk. If so, and considering Imaginetix's relatively shallow pockets, I believe it would have been pulled by now if there seemed little prospect of profit in the near term. Only guessing, but I don't think these guys muck about.

Bobby_Fischer

04-03-2010, 11:17 AM

Just found this on Jessica's Bioguard Blog:

March 26th is the final day that BioGuard will be on Costco's shelves...atleast until next flu season. The test-run was deemed successful!

Imagenetix will be pulling it off the shelves in just over three weeks and plans to have it back on the shelves whenever flu season rolls around. They're also trying to get it into Walmart and Walgreens. As soon as I know, you'll know.

Although Costco won't be carrying BioGuard on the shelves year-round, it will still be available on their website.

Let me know if there are any questions. In the meantime, stock up!

Bobby_Fischer

04-03-2010, 11:21 AM

One presumes it will be carried across the entire Costco chain next year? Jam tomorrow ...

simla

04-03-2010, 05:03 PM

The great thing about Blis is that you seldom expect the news you hear. Here we are waiting to hear about expansion at Costco, and instead it comes off the shelves.

However, it is essentially pretty good news. The trial was a success, we are told, and you have to think that that must have therefore produced decent sales volume. Further, they're now trying to go for Walmart and Walgreens. Walgreens is described as the largest drugstore chain in the US, according to Wikipedia. Walgreens already carries Celadrin, the other Imagenetix product, so they have a communication channel there. Walmarts don't seem to.

Further, the trial stops on the last Friday of March, almost exactly six months after it began, so this was presumably as it was planned. Presumably it will be back next Oct 1, as the trial is described as a success, and remains on the website anyway. Perhaps it will be in Walgreens all year?

Good news for the full year revenue presumably. Blis presumably will be pressing ahead with M18 and other types of products to keep up the momentum as the northern winter passes?