Peter Dornau, Ocean Bio-Chem’s chief executive officer said, Ocean Bio-Chem had a record first quarter 2009 with income before taxes of $217,000, compared to a loss before taxes of ($311,000) for the 1st quarter 2008. This is an improvement in profitability from operations of over $500,000 dollars for the comparative quarters, all this in a very difficult economy. The sales initiatives that the sales team formulated to aggressively increase revenues have shown very positive results. In a soft economy, to increase sales approximately 10% demonstrates our Company’s commitment to increase stakeholders value. The increase in both sales and profits reflects the Company’s in-roads into new and expanded distribution in existing markets. These new markets include: motorcycle, snow mobile and lawn & garden and expanded distribution in the automotive and marine markets. With the blending of ethanol (E10) in gasoline, all types of combustible engines could have issues with the absorption of water into the fuel. StarTron® helps cure these problems. In addition, two new large private label customers also contributed to our first quarter increased sales volume. Strategically we are expanding beyond our traditional marine products markets lessening our dependence on only one segment of the economy.
Dornau added, Along with our sales increase our gross margin percentage increased in the first quarter, resulting from selling price increases implemented in the second half of last year, coupled with the falling cost of goods (decrease cost of petroleum based products). In addition the Company’s sales in the first quarter reflected a higher percentage of higher gross margin products. We have had an excellent start for 2009, and anticipate that we will continue to implement our strategic plans, to aggressively increase sales, at the same time controlling costs for the rest of the year.
