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Little products, big market in Sandpoint, ID

Small business close-up: Little products, big market Sandpoint company Unicep carves tiny niche in packaging world

SANDPOINT _ DENTIST JOHN SNEDDEN built a thriving company around the idea that good things come in small packages. The Sandpoint native’s first package was for others in the dental field _ a disposable syringe with a single dose of the solution used to prepare teeth for fillings.

Becky Kramer Spokesman Review

The dental industry quickly embraced the "micro-dose," whose 1993 debut came on the heels of stricter sterilization regulations for dental instruments.

But it wasn’t until four years later that Snedden and employees of Unicep Packaging Inc. realized how big the market could be. During an Anaheim, Calif., trade show, manufacturers of dozens of other products crowded around their booth. "We recognized that there might be applications outside of dentistry. We recognized that maybe we had a winner," said Steve Dilts, Unicep’s marketing director.

These days, Unicep http://unicep.com/ packages hundreds of products, ranging from medicine to liquid vitamins, veterinary supplies and health and beauty products. They arrive at the Sandpoint plant in bulk five-gallon pails or 55-gallon drums. Some products leave in plastic vials so small they only hold six drops. The products are shipped out of the area by United Parcel Service, and sold across North America, in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

"All this happens out of sleepy little Sandpoint," said Steve Case, Unicep’s vice president of sales and marketing.

Manufacturers want the small packets for a variety of reasons. For cosmetics, a small package promotes the image of rareness and luxury. Some medicine is packaged in single-dose sizes for convenience, or to ensure that patients take the right dose. Other products have a limited shelf life after the container is opened.

Later this year, Unicep will package 24,000 vials of Pre-Seed, a vaginal lubricant, for Bio-OriGyn of Spokane. The lubricant is a "sperm-friendly" moisturizer for couples who are trying to conceive, said Tom Daugherty, Bio-OriGyn’s director of operations.

"We looked at some places. We even flew to Indiana to look at a plant. Our issue with them was that we couldn’t get in the queue. There was several months lag time until they could process our order."

Unicep was local, and it could respond quickly to order requests, Daugherty said.

Snedden declined to discuss Unicep’s 2001 sales figures, but he said the company grosses between $5 million and $10 million annually. The company has a handful of U.S. competitors in its niche market, which is strictly high-end products.

"We’re certainly the smallest, but we think it’s an advantage. We can move quickly," Snedden said. "If they need it next week, and there’s any way we can get it to them, we will."

Fifty-three people work at Unicep. Two floors of the Sandpoint plant devoted to engineering and research are where employees design and build Unicep’s packaging machines. The equipment is so specialized that no cameras are allowed in the production area. Once, a competitor disguised as a customer tried to get a plant tour to get a look at the equipment, Case said.

There aren’t any camera restrictions in the mixing room, where giant blenders recently stirred up a batch of tooth whitener for a dental supply company. The plant is licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and mixes a variety of products for customers. Demand for the service is expanding, resulting in plans for a 20,000-square-foot addition to the plant.

Unicep also expects to see rapid customer growth in the area of home test kits in the next few years — tied, surprisingly, to national security. Diagnostic test kits are currently about 10 percent of the company’s business, but represent a huge potential market, Case said.

President Bush’s Homeland Security legislation contains $4.5 billion for research in the area of diagnostic tests to counter biological warfare, he said.

"I hate to say that business is booming because of security problems, but every (diagnostic) company I know of is going berserk, and we package stuff for those kits," Case said.

The phenomenon has also flung the door open on dozens of other possibilities, including the veterinary market.

"Is my dog pregnant? Does my dog have heartworm? Do I have smallpox?" — those are questions people will start to answer at home, Case said. And their kit could come with packaging from Sandpoint.

•Becky Kramer can be reached at (208) 765-7122 or by e-mail at [email protected].

http://www.spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=091302&ID=s1215419&cat=section.business

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