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Unicep Packaging Inc., of Sandpoint, is expecting big things from its small, squeezable vials.
Demand has been so strong for its tiny MicroDose fluid and gel dispensers - which some customers say look like hummingbirds, and which hold products ranging from medicine to glue to hair dye - that Unicep tripled the size of its manufacturing-and-office building this year to about 30,000 square feet of floor space, says Steve Dilts, Unicep's director of sales and marketing.
It also has hired 11 people this year, bringing its total employment to about 40, Dilts says.
Sales year-to-date are three times what they were in all of 2000, he adds, although he declines to disclose that number for the privately-held company.
"We're expanding when a lot of other companies are shrinking, having had our best year ever," he says. Unicep expects more growth next year, he says. The company, which in addition to manufacturing the vials also fills them for customers, anticipates that next year's sales will be twice as high as this year's, based in part on the introduction of a new product, a one-dose plastic bottle with a disposable, twist-off top. That product, called the Twister, is just being introduced to the market, Dilts says.
The Twister is shaped like a bottle and can stand up like one, unlike the MicroDose dispensers,...