By Joyce Kryszak
Orchard Park, Ny – A local company is expanding its own recognizable name with another familiar brand. The Mentholatum company of Orchard Park has acquired the OXY acne skin care product line.
Mentholatum is a name that has been well known to parents for more than a century. Generations of children have weathered stuffy noses and nasty colds with the pungent ointment slathered on their chest.
The company has added lip balms and other health products over the years. Now, Mentholatum is putting another familiar name into its portfolio.
Mark Cieslinski is Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Mentholatum. Cieslinski said the OXY brand is a logical choice for the company's diversification plan.
"If the weather goes south in the lip care business, we can still have three other, strong core businesses to pick up the slack," said Cieslinski. "You never want to have too much of your business in one product line."
Cieslinski said they expect to expand on OXY's brand recognition. Initially, he said the acquisition will only add about a half dozen jobs to the current workforce of about 205 in Orchard Park. The new employees will handle marketing and sales for the OXY line.
Cieslinski said production will come later.
"Right now we're going to continue on with Glaxo Smith Kline and get the product from them, and then as we move forward we'll look at the appropriate date of when we should bring the production to Orchard Park," said Cieslinski.
"So, right now we're having more of a short term focus on getting the product ordered and changed over in the retail trade to our name and us starting the marketing and sales end of it, then the operations part will follow later on."
Cieslinski said it's uncertain yet when that will occur or how many additional jobs could be added at that time. But he added that Mentholatum's long-term plans may also include developing other skin care products.