Stuart company now offering product in Walgreens

July 2, 2012 - PRLog -- TC Palm
By Paul Ivice

For about 10 years now, H2Ocean has been selling its array of products through about 5,000 independent outlets such as physician, dentist and veterinary offices, tattoo parlors and piercing studios.

Since June 1, though, H2Ocean has been marketing its products in end-cap displays at a growing number of Walgreens stores from Vero Beach to West Palm Beach. With about 8,300 stores, Walgreens is the nation's largest drug retailing chain.

By this weekend, H2Ocean products will be in 15 Walgreens, Stier said.

"Walgreens is our first step into mass merchandisers," Stier said, noting it took two years to close the deal with Walgreens.

The company, owned by Edward Kolos and his wife, Geri, holds three patents on the use of sea salt in products such as mouthwash, nasal spray and wound-care rinses.

"That's what makes our products unique," said Scott Stier, H2Ocean's executive director of operations, "that we hold multiple patents on using sea salt in water for skin and oral care."

If H2Ocean products sell well at these Walgreens, the company's products will be sold in Walgreens around Florida and then nationwide.

Though no additional hiring is planned for now, H2Ocean Vice President Marty Stern said if the Walgreens launch is successful the company plans to double the current staff of 28 employees in Palm City over the next three years.

"We're hoping to see substantial results in their test market in 60 to 90 days," Stern said.

To even get test marketed locally by Walgreens, H2Ocean had to change its product packaging to more shelf-friendly designs and show its production capability could keep up with the demands of a national chain.

H2Ocean's headquarters and distribution center is in the Treasure Coast Commerce Center off Jack James Drive. The company has manufacturing plants near Tampa, Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C.

The products have no active ingredients, are not considered drugs and the company makes no healing claims, so they do need neither a doctor's prescription nor Food & Drug Administration approval.

H2Ocean's sales have increased by about 15 percent a year in the three years since the company moved to Martin County after outgrowing its location in Boynton Beach.