Financial News

Dollar sales in the snack/granola bar category have grown nearly 8% in the past year, according to Sue Viamari, editor of Symphony­IRI Group’s Times and Trends report.


“Growth is being driven by strong performance by nutrition/intrinsic health value bars and granola bars, which climbed 15.6% and 7% during that time period,” she said. Breakfast/cereal bars posted flat sales for the year.


NEW YORK — The second half of the 2010-2011 cough-cold-flu season actually may realize greater sales of symptom relievers than last year, judging from the four weeks ended Dec. 26. According to Matrixx president and CEO Bill Hemelt, sales of remedies were on the rise in those four weeks. Hemelt noted that the total cough-cold category was 5% higher than the same period last year and growing. 


Gojo Industries this past fall reacquired its Purell hand-sanitizer brand from Johnson & Johnson and is currently putting the pieces in place to reassume a category leadership role for waterless hand washing.


The endeavor is not without its challenges. Today, hand sanitizers are a highly commoditized category. And though sanitizers certainly benefited from increased awareness associated with last year’s H1N1 pandemic, that awareness didn’t translate into sales; the $100-million-plus category is down 35.4% in 2010, according to SymphonyIRI Group data. 


SUPPLIER NEWS — Drug maker Valeant Pharmaceuticals International has acquired U.S. and Canadian rights to certain formulations of a GlaxoSmithKline drug used to treat cold sores. Valeant acquired the rights to nonophthalmic topical formulations of Zovirax (acyclovir) from GSK for $300 million through its Canadian subsidiary, Biovail Labs.



Consumers may have a bit more to spend for the 2011 back-to-school season, so retailers should tweak their merchandise plans to accommodate.


Perry James, an analyst at the NPD Group, said that over the past few years, dollar trends in school supplies have not kept pace with unit supplies. Consumers also have been waiting until the last minute to shop. “As the economy gets better, retailers should be careful about too many promotions late in the season,” James said.

ALLEGAN, Mich. — Perrigo on Thursday announced that it has entered into an exclusive agreement with AgaMatrix to sell and distribute blood-glucose monitors and test strips in the U.S. store-brand channel.

Nipro Diagnostics long has dominated store-brand blood-glucose meters with a co-branding program that includes TRUE2Go, TRUEresult and TRUEtrack.

As part of the agreement, Perrigo will sell and distribute certain products in the current AgaMatrix portfolio, as well as certain future new products.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

SAN DIEGO and PHEONIX — Two natural food retailers are merging together.

Henry's Farmers Market and Sprouts Farmers Market, which were both founded by the Boney family, will combine forces under the majority ownership and sponsorship of Apollo Management, a private equity firm. The stores will operate under the Sprouts Farmers Market name.

The newly merged operation will include 98 stores, more than 7,000 employees and annual revenues that exceed $1 billion at the time of the transaction closing, which is expected to be in the second quarter 2011.

PLANO, Texas — Earnings per share for Dr Pepper Snapple Group increased 5 cents to 49 cents, compared with the year-ago period, thanks to an increase in consumer spending and new licensing agreements with Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.