OPCO: Cash merger; OPCO acquired by Paws Merger Parent, LLC, a private entity; for every 1 share of OPCO shareholders have the right to receive exactly $1.00 in cash.

FINRA deleted symbol:

https://otce.finra.org/otce/dailyList?viewType=Deletions

Added more ~ .80

Pretty sure it's hitting bottom here in the .75 -.85 range.

Earnings just released
... both good news and bad.

I'll take a few here at $1.24.

This is a re-entry for me with my last sale being around $1.46

I first bought this stock years ago in the .15 - .18 range and its been good to me overall -- though I admit to making many trading blunders with it.

Really now???

insiders selling here, not buying

and here

Did you read the last 10Q?

Sales down year over year on the quarter AND and increase of about 1.8 million shares ....

Its moving closer to ONE DOLLAR THAN TWO DOLLARS

breaking past 2 sometime end of month.. IMHO...

8-K looks good long term, good investment here. :)

nice steady climb upward... :)

Maybe a PR next week announcing a deal made at the pet expo?

New company record for second quarter 2017
Second Quarter Results

volume picking up this week.... Long :)

this stock is a real winner and all who invest in it will be very, very happy...buy all you can and be a happy camper.

OPCO at north america largest pet trade show

Article of European pet food industryEurope's pet food industry

Europe & Asia markets. Explosive growth potential

profitability + growth = higher PPS

I really like this low floater... I am in :)

OPCO sells products at Chewy.com I think Chewy did an ipo this year. Maybe Chewy would want to acquire this company if its products sell well at Chewy.com

Just a thought.

Whoever keeps trolling the ask just sell all your shares at the bid and get on with your life

Annoying as hell

$OPCO

OPCO = EXTREMELY BULLISH

This is gonna be a silent low volume mover

Just check out $OMNT and see why this stock will be golden in very short time

GLTA!!

OPCO is a buyout candidate..up 50% YTD and just released a very good ER

OPCO Has Its Eyes Set on Fast Growing High-End Pet Care Industry

One of the few industries that not only survived the recession but continued growing at a steady pace, the pet care market is expected to keep up the same trend as it expands and diversifies into a wider, more high-end range of products and services. The industry has been growing year-on-year over the past two decades, to an estimated $62.74 billion in 2016, according to American Pet Products Association statistics (http://nnw.fm/ny07H), and market experts predict this trend is very likely to extend into the future, mostly as a direct result of a growing culture of pet anthropomorphism and a tendency to pamper pets with only the highest-quality products and services, from food and toys to medical care and grooming.

As more pet owners are beginning to humanize their furry friends and treat them as members of the family, sometimes even spending considerably more money on their food and general care products, businesses in the market are starting to take notice. The range of high-end products available in the niche is therefore wider than ever, with an emphasis on top quality ingredients and materials. In this landscape, innovative pet businesses such as Ohio-based OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) can only thrive through its commitment to offering only the best and highest quality products.

Pet food businesses were the first to join the high-end pet care market train, but there is also a growing demand for super premium products and services, including luxurious pet spas and hotels targeting affluent pet owners, pet portrait photography, and pet behavior consulting – which indicates a growing concern among pet owners to actually understand their pets and learn how to correctly interpret their behavior and reactions.

OurPet’s Company is tapping into a market segment that has much room for further development – that of pet supplies and OTC medicine, which was estimated at $14.98 billion in 2016. For comparison, the pet food market segment raked in an estimated $24.01 billion last year. The company is targeting the high-end pet care market via an impressive range of feeding accessories, toys, waste management products and high-tech items that are designed to help owners develop a closer bond to their pets by closely monitoring their health and behavior, even from a distance. Its unique line of proprietary products, distributed both nationwide and overseas, confirms the company’s commitment to developing one-of-a-kind, premium solutions that are unparalleled on the market.

Via an impressive product roster that ranges from highly innovative toys to smart waste management solutions such as the OurPets® Switchgrass Natural Cat Litter™ (http://nnw.fm/yK3A9) – a high-quality, all natural and fully biodegradable litter, the company’s place on the high-end pet care market seems nothing short of set in stone. In addition, OurPet’s is one of the few companies in the industry that is focusing on incorporating smart technology into the lives of pets and their owners, via the OurPets® Intelligent Pet Care™ product line (http://nnw.fm/gb2PK). Consisting of several intelligent pet health monitoring products using Bluetooth® technology, the Intelligent Pet Care™ line is designed to allow owners to constantly monitor their pets’ behavior through a smartphone app. The product line includes smart feeding and watering solutions, an intelligent, self-cleaning litter box and related Bluetooth® and Wi-Fi accessories.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.OurPets.com

OPCO, Growing 50% Faster than the Industry Rate, Is a Bargain Buy

In the world of value investing, not all that is gold glitters… like Ohio-based OurPet’s Company, for example. OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) is a leading proprietary pet supply company that designs, produces, and markets a broad line of innovative, high-quality accessory and consumable pet products under the OurPets® and Pet Zone® brands in the U.S. and international markets. Its yearly revenues have been rising at a steady clip since its inception over 20 years ago and so, too, have its profits. Yet OPCO’s valuation is way below what you might expect. Could this be a case of investors eschewing value because they don’t like the packaging?

No, you may argue. Investors are rational. They make decisions that maximize utility. The rational investor will base his decision on expected returns. Yet, we know now that that is not entirely true. Despite our claims to be rational, we demonstrate a great deal of ‘risk aversion’. We don’t like to lose. We will play it safe because the pain of losing a dollar is greater than the pleasure of finding one.

However, if losing money causes pain, why then do we gamble? Several explanations have been offered. It may be that gamblers are a naughty subset of the population who, unlike their more mature brethren, are decidedly irrational. It may be that our attitudes to risk change with mood. On days when our world looks bright, we are prepared to take more risks than when things don’t look so good. Perhaps, gambling is seen more as entertainment. We would like to win, but if we don’t, at least we had a good time. Or is it because of all the idiosyncrasies that make us human? It isn’t rational, for example, to sacrifice your life to save a stranger. Yet, as ‘The Man in the Water’ (http://nnw.fm/4ujBI) has shown us, we each have the capacity to do just that.

So investors like glamour. If we say we’re invested early in Facebook or Google, wouldn’t we be regarded as savants? Isn’t that the way Warren Buffet works?

Irony aside, Buffet’s success is based on ‘value investing’. He famously said, “Whether we’re talking about socks or stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.” True value investing means picking up a bargain, companies whose stock prices don’t reflect their fundamental worth. In other words, buy it when it’s on sale.

OPCO is one such company. It prides itself on adaptability. CEO Dr. Steve Tsengas has remarked that one of the main rationales behind the founding of OurPet’s Company in 1994 was the lack of innovation in the pet industry at that time. In fact, so intent on the knowledge-based aspect of the enterprise were its co-founders, Dr. Steve Tsengas and Dean Tsengas, that they decided to focus on generating new and improved solutions for pet owners and ways of getting product to market rather than manufacturing. So, on the one hand, OurPet’s Company concentrates on innovation and design, and, on the other, on marketing and distributing its product line.

The company is focused on high-growth categories in the non-food segment of the pet products market. Healthy feeding/storage systems (http://nnw.fm/43nKJ) represent a $100 million a year market. Feline waste and odor control (http://nnw.fm/R8pdB) is a $250 million a year market. And the interactive cat and dog toys/accessories segment (http://nnw.fm/N7Fhy) is a whopping $1 billion a year market.

OPCO has been growing 50 percent faster than the industry rate. With a P/E ratio that has ranged between 12.5 and 14.5, OPCO is definitely a bargain buy.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.OurPets.com

OPCO “Diamond-in-the-Rough” Microcap Investor Presentation

On December 1, 2016, OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) gave an investor presentation with VirtualInvestorConferences.com (powered by PR Newswire), in which its management team laid out the reasons they feel the company is significantly undervalued, with established and continuing growth in its market and company figures, along with products and technology that nobody else has, making it a diamond-in-the-rough for a microcap investor.

The presentation, given by Scott Mendes (OPCO’s CFO/Treasurer) with follow up by Dean Tsengas (COO and co-founder), covered the company’s strengths in each of the pertinent areas:

- Industry and Markets
- Company Products, Patents
- Channels of Distribution
- Company Financials
- Investment highlights

Key Points

OurPet’s Company, founded in 1995, has been strategically aimed at high-growth categories in the non-food pet market, a strategy that has helped it grow every year. The overall U.S. pet industry is the third largest consumer market, over $77 billion in 2015, and is expected to grow to $96 billion by 2020. About 65% of households own a pet, and it’s considered a recession resistant market, of which about 19% is devoted to pet accessories and treats (nearly $15 billion). OPCO’s particular areas are:

- Interactive cat and dog toys and accessories (a $1 billion per year category)
- Feline waste and odor control solutions ($250 million per year category)
- Healthy feeding and storage systems ($100 million per year category)

OPCO aims strategically at two overall pet owner markets:

- The OurPets premium brand pet products, found at pet specialty retailers
- The PetZone economy brand pet products, found at food/drug/mass retailers

Although the company does accept private label business from major customers, the emphasis has always been to continue building its brands.

The company has a diversified portfolio of approximately 1,000 SKUs of upscale profitable products, backed up by a pipeline of new offerings, with 170 patents issued or pending. OPCO’s strength continues to be its ability to merge the latest material and electronic technologies with a well-researched knowledge of how pets relate to the world, resulting in award-winning products that have a history of attracting pets and pet owners.

The company considers itself clearly ahead of the curve in the industry, and sees this as part of the reason for its strong position with the world’s leading retailers, such as Walmart (NYSE: WMT), PetSmart, Petco, Target (NYSE: TGT), Publix, and Kroger (NYSE: KR), all blue-chip companies that remove the worry of bad debts. In line with this, OPCO is also making ecommerce a primary strategic initiative and is on track to grow revenues to nearly $2 million annually with Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN).

Approximately 61% of OPCO’s revenue comes from the cat market, mostly toys and accessories together with waste and odor products, while 38% comes from the dog market, mostly feeding and storage products. However, OPCO also sees untouched opportunities in the dog toys area. As with its cat toys, OPCO has put research into the sensations and activities that dogs prefer, not just what humans think they would like, and of course, as with cats, not every dog is the same, so the toys are designed to capture different dogs and different preferences. The result is a line of toy options that dog owners prefer, because they’re toys that their pet dogs really enjoy.

The cat pet market represents roughly $15 million annually for OPCO. Cat owners find their pets entertaining, and similarly enjoy entertaining their pets. To maintain a position of leadership in creative and effective cat toys, the company is constantly researching to determine what works best for both the cat and the owner, toys that keep cats active and engaged. This has translated into over 600 SKUs in the cat toy area alone, including integrated electronic products, one of which, the Catty Whack, won the Best New Cat Toy for 2015 at the national SuperZoo trade show for pet retailers.

The cat waste management market is also significant for OPCO, and an area that is seen as largely underserved with significant potential when approached creatively. OPCO now covers more than the traditional litter box concept, offering advanced fully automatic litter systems, semi-automatic litter boxes, disposable litter boxes and a “kitty potty.” The company is confident in saying that it offers the most complete line of waste management products in the world.

OPCO has also gotten into the growing natural cat litter market, with its just-introduced switchgrass-based litter product. Switchgrass is a hardy grass that grows in North America, and does not require chemical fertilizers or pesticides. It is both flushable and biodegradable. OPCO combines switchgrass with BioChar, a charred pine product, to create a truly environmentally friendly 100% natural litter product. Relating to this, the company recently won an award from Pet Business News as one of the most innovative products of the year.

In fact, both dog and cat waste management has become an environmental issue for many cities around the world. To again stay ahead of the industry, OPCO has now partnered with Israel-based Paulee Cleantec, a waste technology company that has developed a patent protected exothermic oxidation process that converts animal waste into a pathogen and odor-free fertilizer in minutes. Still under final product development, the potential for this alone is seen as unlimited, not only in the U.S. but internationally. (OPCO products are already distributed to about 20 different countries.)

Other examples of the company’s moves to stay in front of the industry include its patent-pending chrome-coated plastic feeder bowls, giving the bowls a dramatic metallic shine, while being chip-resistant, discouraging bacterial growth, and being dishwasher safe. Even more advanced are the company’s line of pet care products that are Bluetooth enabled, Intelligent Pet Care products, including litter and feed/water products, with Internet control capability. These are all first-of-a-kind products.

FINANCIALS SUMMARY

- OPCO’s annual sales have grown steadily, from around $20 million in 2012 to over $25 million today (trailing 12 months). The way the company has built its business base and market is so solid that it is more predictable and not prone to recessions.
- Yearly gross profits have also grown, from about $5.5 million in 2012 to about $8 million today, with gross profit margins around 32%.
- Net income has grown markedly over the past 4 years, from about $200,000 in 2012 to over $1.3 million for the trailing 12 months ended Sept 30, 2016. (Note: OPCO is a “second half” company, and expects to show very strong financial performance for the second half of 2016.)
- For this year to date through Sept 30, 2016, sales are up about 10% over the previous year’s first nine months and upcoming Q4 is looking even better.
- Q3’16 is especially impressive, showing record results, with 21% growth over the previous year’s Q3, and a 21% growth in net income.

OPCO management considers shares as being under-valued. OPCO is a fully reporting OTCQX stock, but, although share price has gone up and is now around the $1 range, its management feels that the P/E ratio is still low. Instead of the 12-14 range, it should be closer to 20, based upon growth and profit figures, with the stock trading closer to the $1.50 range. In addition, they feel that the company can grow significantly, having an ERP system that can handle any scale, along with a new CRM system, and with total logistics management in the warehouse.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.OurPets.com, and see http://nnw.fm/oB7RM for the company presentation sheet.

OPCO Honored by Pet Business with 2016 Industry Recognition Award

Before the opening bell, OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) announced that it has been awarded a 2016 Industry Recognition Award by the trade publication Pet Business for its innovative OurPets® Switchgrass Natural Cat Litter™ (http://nnw.fm/lAH9N). Originally unveiled at this year’s SuperZoo pet industry convention in Las Vegas, the company’s Switchgrass Natural Cat Litter with Biochar is a biodegradable, all natural, sustainable and non-food-based alternative to current offerings on the cat waste disposal market. Switchgrass, which is a core component of the cat litter, is a plant that is native to North America and does not require the use of fertilization or chemicals during growth. Additionally, when combined with natural, wood-based biochar, switchgrass has been shown to offer superior clumping strength alongside strong moisture and odor absorbency.

The benefits offered by OPCO’s natural waste management solution has caught the attention of those in the pet industry since its launch back in August, and the company’s recognition in Pet Business continues to build on this trend. The publication’s Industry Recognition Awards have been awarded annually for well over a decade to place a spotlight on “the most exciting and functional products on the market.” For OPCO, gaining coverage from Pet Business should help the company continue to increase brand awareness and build on its recent financial growth in the rapidly expanding pet industry, which the American Pet Products Association expects to surpass the $62 billion mark by the end of this year.

In October, OPCO gave prospective investors some insight into its recent growth through the release of its third quarter financial results. Among the highlights, the company recorded quarterly revenue of $7.26 million, marking a 21 percent increase over the similar period of 2015. Driven by initial shipments of both its Switchgrass Natural Cat Litter and its groundbreaking Intelligent Pet Care product line (http://nnw.fm/Ta9Ab), OPCO’s sales through the first nine months of 2016 were up nearly 10 percent year-over-year, growth that more than doubled the pet industry average.

“With the resumption of shipments to our major specialty pet retail customer, we were firing on all cylinders this past quarter,” Dr. Steven Tsengas, president and chief executive officer of OPCO, stated in the October news release. “Beyond 2016, our strategy is to achieve double-digit growth in sales and net income with an emphasis on developing and launching proprietary, innovative products and entering appropriate new market segments… We have many ‘irons in the fire’ and are very excited about the future.”

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.OurPets.com

Animal Spirits at OPCO are Propelling Performance

The management at OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) is driven by animal spirits. They’ve taken the quite mundane business of pet care and turned it into a high tech, high touch enterprise. Products now range from the groundbreaking OurPets® Big Dog Feeder® (http://nnw.fm/7KPv9) to the Intelligent Pet Care™ line (http://nnw.fm/vpkN3), which uses digital technologies to enhance communication with pets. In an industry that is growing twice as fast as the economy, OurPet’s Company is racing ahead at double the industry pace. In its third quarter 10-K, published November 14, 2016, the company shows that this pace has not lessened. Revenues for 2016 through the first three quarters were about 10% greater than for the same period a year ago.

When, in 1936, John Maynard Keynes coined the term ‘animal spirits’ in his magnum opus “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money”, he was describing the ‘spontaneous optimism’ on which ‘a large proportion of our positive activities depend’. The great man opined that ‘if the animal spirits are dimmed and the spontaneous optimism falters, leaving us to depend on nothing but a mathematical expectation, enterprise will fade and die’. In other words, however businesslike we may consider ourselves to be, in the end, we are irrational creatures, moved by sentiment and plagued by lack of information.

The animal spirits driving OPCO are not just pie in the sky, however. They are grounded in ‘mathematical expectation’, as the company’s latest quarterly report indicates. Net revenue for the nine months to September 2016 was $18.9 million, increasing by about $1.7 million over same period sales the year before. Net revenue for the third quarter of 2016 was $7.3 million, 21 percent higher than third quarter 2015 revenue of $6.0 million. Income after taxes for the nine-month period was also about 21% higher than the year before, and diluted earnings per share rose from $0.04 to $0.05.

OPCO continues its marketing focus on the pet specialty; food, drug and mass retail; and e-commerce distribution channels. Third quarter sales to pet specialty customers accounted for 48 percent of the company’s total, while mass retail sales and e-commerce sales made up 39 percent and eight percent, respectively. The other five percent of sales took place mostly through the value and closeout channels.

The strategy to implement a renewed marketing push was set in motion last year, when OPCO initiated its dual-branding approach. The OurPets® brand is targeted at the pet specialty channel, while the Pet Zone brand is sold to the food, drug and mass retail channel. Both brands are sold online through the company’s e-commerce effort.

Pet care is becoming big business as Americans lavish care and attention on their animals. The industry is expected to grow to almost $63 billion by the end of 2016. If pet care were a country, it would rank around #70 in economic size out of 196 economies. That, maybe, accounts for the animal spirits at OurPet’s Company.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.OurPets.com

OPCO is Growing Organically

At last month’s MicroCap Conference in Philadelphia, the technological prowess of OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) was on display. A presentation (http://dtn.fm/1oSgo) by the company’s chief financial officer, Scott Mendes, showed the many innovative products for cats and dogs, who are the rainmakers of OurPet’s Company. The CFO also gave an account of OPCO’s history of growth, from its genesis in 1985 as Napro, Inc. to the present. The company has grown both organically and through acquisitions. CEO Dr. Steve Tsengas wants to double its size and, to support that expansion, has invested heavily in distribution and marketing infrastructure.

The company was founded in 1994 by chairman and CEO Dr. Steve Tsengas and chief operating officer Dean Tsengas. Dr. Steve Tsengas is an enterprising engineer who has been elected to the National Inventors Hall of Fame. In a past MissionIR OPCO interview (http://dtn.fm/5kLUU), he revealed that one rationale behind the founding of OurPet’s Company was the lack of innovation in the pet industry back in the 1990s. As a result, a decision was made to concentrate on creating truly novel products that solved problems for pets and pet parents, along with the marketing and distribution of those products, rather than manufacturing. Since its inception, OPCO has stuck to that mission and successfully passed many mirthful milestones.

In 1994, its first product, the Big Dog Feeder®, which made it easier for big dogs to eat by elevating the feeding bowl, created quite a stir at a classic pet show in Cleveland, Ohio. Three days after its debut, the feeder recorded sales of about $6,500. In 2001, the company became publicly traded on the Over-the-Counter Bulletin Board under the symbol OPCO. OPCO continued on this inventive path by acquiring or creating brands like the Play-N-Squeak®, Cosmic Catnip™, Go! Cat! Go!®, Durapet®, SmartScoop® and Flappy®. In 2014, it launched its dual brand strategy with OurPets® and Pet Zone®. Products under the OurPets® brand are targeted at pet specialty retailers, while those under the Pet Zone® brand are distributed through the food, drug and mass retail channels.

Now, OurPet’s Company is set to exploit the amazing possibilities offered by new digital technologies with its OurPets® Intelligent Pet Care™ (http://dtn.fm/0Hcpa) product line. This suite of products is designed to help parents monitor their pets by employing a combination of infrared (IR), Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technologies.

OurPet’s Company has been growing much faster than the industry as a whole. Since 2010, it has had an annual compound growth rate (CAGR) of about six percent, while the industry has experienced a more modest four percent. The company’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) have increased from $403,761 in Q1 2014 to $958,263 in Q3 2016, while net income has increased by 269 percent over the same period, from $134,427 to $495,669. The cats and dogs at OurPet’s Company are racing ahead like cheetahs and greyhounds.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.OurPets.com

OPCO Brings Innovative Smart Tech Products to Pet Care Market

Smart technology has become an integral part of our lives, from our phones, computers and watches to our cars and homes, which now have more features and can do more than even the smartest computer could 20 years ago. It was an expected and natural step that we carried this passion for smart tech and interconnectivity over to the pet industry as well. Intelligent pet products such as the ones offered by leading pet care solutions provider OurPet’s Company, Inc. (OTCQX: OPCO) are becoming increasingly common, as they enable pet parents to develop a stronger bond with their pets for more complete care and closer monitoring of their health and behavior.

Pet tech has been developing at a rapid pace on a growing market that now has a propensity for high-end products, including state-of-the-art gadgets and premium feeding solutions. This is largely owed to the fact that many pet owners now see their furry friends as actual family members and treat them as such, sparing no expense. The industry has responded to the trend by offering better products, improved formulas and, now, smart tech-powered solutions for every pet. Manufacturers have already rolled out a wide range of high-tech pet products on the market, ranging from smart training collars that allow even remote training to radio-frequency operated flap doors, automatic ball launchers for dogs, and smart feeding bowls that count calories or only open for a specific pet.

Ohio-based OurPet’s Company has already joined the smart pet tech movement with its own line of smart products designed to offer enhanced care and help owners closely monitor their pets’ health. The OurPets® Intelligent Pet Care™ product line (http://dtn.fm/23VLn) offers a complete range of intelligent pet health monitoring products based on Bluetooth® technology. These products enable owners to keep in touch with their pets and be aware of any changes in their behavior via the IntelligentPetLink™ smartphone app, available for download for both Android and iOS.

The Intelligent Pet Care™ product line includes products such as the SmartLink™ Feeder – Intelligent Pet Bowl (http://dtn.fm/u38FY) and the SmartLink™ Waterer – Intelligent Water Fountain (http://dtn.fm/uH6Bv), designed to give your dog or cat the ability to communicate that they may have a health issue by monitoring the key indicators of pet health. The systems communicate with a tag that can be attached to your pet’s collar, and they give access to food or water only when they detect that tag in the vicinity. This makes the SmartLink™ Feeder and Waterer ideal for households with multiple pets or for pets who are on special diets and monitoring of their eating and drinking habits can help the pet parent better understand any health issues with their pet that may arise.

Other products in the Intelligent Pet Care™ line include the SmartScoop® – Intelligent Litter Box (http://dtn.fm/nM3Nl), which monitors elimination behavior and uses infrared technology to detect when your cat uses the litter and engages a scoop mechanism to scoop the waste and keep the box clean. Also available are the SmartLink™ Tag (http://dtn.fm/2fInt) and the SmartLink™ Gateway – WiFi Pet Care Connector (http://dtn.fm/l5Q1k) that converts a Bluetooth® signal into Wi-Fi signals so as to enable owners to monitor their pet’s activity outside the house.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.OurPets.com

OPCO Switchgrass Natural Cat Litter™ with Biochar gets a Nod from the Vet

At this year’s SuperZoo, The National Show for Pet Retailers that ran from July 31 – August 4 in Las Vegas, innovative pet care outfit OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) launched its new OurPets® Switchgrass Natural Cat Litter™ with Biochar (http://dtn.fm/eI5Py). The timing was opportune. It seems there is growing awareness of biochar’s benefits. In a recent interview (http://dtn.fm/ENg8i), well-known veterinarian Dr. Karen Becker, DVM discussed the virtues of this unique form of charcoal as litter material for cats.

Biochar has a huge surface area because of its porosity. It is also hugely recalcitrant, and so holds on to nutrients, water and smells, the latter of which is an ideal quality for waste management. Biochar also comes in the right particle size, as Dr. Becker explains:

“Studies on the types of litter cats prefer show they are quite particular about particle size. The cat’s evolutionary substrate, for potty purposes, is sand. When kitties started living indoors, clay litter came along and most cats were okay with it. But clay has its own issues.

These days, there’s a wide selection of organic and natural types of litters on the market, but many of them feature big particle sizes, which don’t appeal to most cats. The danger in forcing an objectionable litter on cats is they often develop litter box aversion, which can lead to other problems.”

Just as beneficial, biochar clumps well. Clumping extends the life of the litter and provides a healthier environment for cats. Biochar is also very absorbent. And, of course, biochar litter is 100 percent biodegradable and compostable.

The term biochar typically refers to charcoal that is used to enrich soil. It is most often made by subjecting biomass to pyrolysis (heating without burning). Its property to increase soil fertility has been known to humans for at least two millennia, as the terra preta plots in the Amazonian basis have proven.

Biochar has been found to possess many virtues. Apart from being used as a soil amendment, biochar improves water quality by acting as a filter and acts as a carbon sink. It can trap large amounts of carbon dioxide in the ground for centuries, a process referred to as sequestering. So effective is its role in this respect that policy makers are actively considering its employment as a ‘carbon negative’ agent to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide.

OurPet’s Company aims to make the waste and odor category a more significant part of its business in the future. Currently, its flagship product in this area is the SmartScoop®. The company has, over the years, developed over 1,000 product lines and has another 30 or so products in the pipeline, plus an intellectual property stockpile of over 170 patents.

OurPet’s Company has been growing at twice the industry rate. It has had, since 2010, a CAGR of about six percent. The two-pronged branding strategy it initiated in 2011 with the OurPets® brand targeting the pet aficionado and the Pet Zone® brand targeting the mass market has, undoubtedly, paid off.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.OurPets.com

OPCO Positioned for Growth Within the $60 Billion Pet Industry

The future of OurPet’s Company (http://dtn.fm/1Ypil) (OTCQX: OPCO), a producer of innovative pet related products, is looking bright thanks to the growth of the pets industry since 2014. Since its foundation in 1995, OurPet’s Company has been dedicated to providing nutritional, medical, physical, and emotional stimulation and value to pets across the U.S.

But, the pet industry has never looked as strong as today. As warmer weather than usual crosses the U.S., sales have boomed in both veterinary and non-medical services. Spending for 2015 came in at a record $60.28 billion, and this figure is expected to grow by the end of 2016, according to the American Pet Products Association (APPA) (http://dtn.fm/7hsjN).

The APPA report includes information regarding market categories such as food, supplies, over-the-counter medications, veterinary care, animal purchases, and more. Although food, veterinary services, supplies and over-the-counter medications still remain at the top of pet industry spending, pet services have shown a record growth of 11.8% between 2014 and 2015 and over 5% growth from 2015 so far this year.

Additionally, according to Pet Business (http://dtn.fm/tf10Q), the industry is predicted to continue to grow as millennials now enter their prime spending years. Generation Y and the millennials are going to be the primary audience for the pet industry, both of which are highly influenced by advances in technology. Fortunately, OPCO’s product line is diverse. The company prides itself on offering the highest quality products to its animal friends, and current industry growth has allowed the company to focus on more innovative technological products such as its OurPets® Intelligent Pet Care™ (http://dtn.fm/X356d) line.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.OurPets.com

OPCO Supports Responsible Pet Ownership with Intelligent Pet Care™ Product Line

September was National Responsible Dog Ownership Month, an initiative started by the American Kennel Club with the purpose of helping pet owners raise healthy and happy dogs by making sure they are aware of all the responsibilities dog ownership entails, from budgeting your furry friend’s health care to making sure it has proper identification and giving it enough love and attention. As a leading provider of innovative pet products, OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) is dedicated to supporting responsible dog and cat ownership through its unique line of intelligent products designed to offer enhanced care and monitoring of your pet’s health.

To raise awareness of the fact that getting a pet comes with a series of obligations, the American Kennel Club has put together a list of basic responsibilities a dog owner must be ready for – requirements that are indeed the sign of responsible pet ownership regardless of whether your new family member is canine or feline. Some of these basics include regular veterinarian exams to make sure your dog’s overall health is good, sticking with your pet’s vaccination schedule to prevent possible severe diseases such as rabies or parvovirus, ensuring a healthy and balanced diet for your dog, keeping it properly hydrated and safe from the elements, and also making sure your dog has proper identification. By following these very simple guidelines, all dog owners can make sure their pets will be happy and healthy for many years to come.

With the OurPets® Intelligent Pet Care™ product line (http://dtn.fm/1O31j), pet owners will find it easier than ever to monitor their furry friends’ behavior and health, enabling them to develop a stronger bond for more complete care. The Intelligent Pet Care™ line is the first that offers a complete range of smart pet health monitoring products by incorporating Bluetooth® technology into everyday pet care. Owners will be able to keep in touch with their pets and be aware of any changes in their behavior or daily routines via the IntelligentPetLink™ smartphone app, available for download for both Android and iOS systems.

The SmartLink™ Waterer – Intelligent Water Fountain (http://dtn.fm/5j5Nw) and SmartLink™ Feeder – Intelligent Pet Bowl (http://dtn.fm/83Esn) are, for instance, crucial for keeping your cat or dog well hydrated and properly fed with fresh water and food, in the right amount. This eliminates the needs of leaving out a bowl of water or food while you’re away, which can be a problem if you have multiple pets and you would have no way of controlling how much food each of them is getting. The SmartLink™ Waterer ensures that your pet always has access to fresh water by sensing when it is near and dispensing clean, filtered water in a waterfall design. The water fountain’s Bluetooth® module then sends regular updates to the owner’s smartphone about their pet’s drinking behaviors, water temperature and more. The SmartLink™ Feeder works in a similar way, dispensing food only when detecting a particular tag that can be attached to your cat or dog’s collar. This system is ideal for a pet on a particular diet that requires meals on specific intervals. All of this information is then communicated to the owner’s phone through the IntelligentPetLink™ app.

The Intelligent Pet Care™ product line also includes the SmartScoop® – Intelligent Litter Box (http://dtn.fm/6LeLV), the SmartLink™ Tag (http://dtn.fm/X9EyX), and the SmartLink™ Gateway – WiFi Pet Care Connector (http://dtn.fm/0IN6p), which converts Bluetooth® signals into long-range WiFi signals to allow monitoring of pets’ activities outside the house.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.OurPets.com

OPCO Achieves Record Results for Third Quarter 2016

Before the opening bell, OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) reported record revenue of $7.26 million for the fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2016, marking a year-over-year increase of 21 percent. The company’s net income for the three-month period of $495,669, or $0.025 per share, was also up 21 percent from the previous year. All told, when discounting the effects of a one-time U.S. Custom exam refund of $94,000 that was received during the third quarter of 2015, OPCO’s adjusted net income grew by a staggering 57 percent between the third quarters of 2015 and 2016. Dr. Steven Tsengas, president and chief executive officer of OurPet’s Company, reiterated the strong results in this morning’s update.

“With the resumption of shipments to our major specialty pet retail customer, we were firing on all cylinders this past quarter,” he stated. “With the strong third-quarter sales, we are up almost 10% for the nine months of 2016, more than double the pet industry average.”

To view OurPet’s Company’s full third quarter results, visit http://dtn.fm/WxAE3

Over the years, OurPet’s Company has established a position in the growing global pet products industry through a commitment to quality and innovation, and this dedication played a key role in the company’s third quarter growth. Leveraging a sizable intellectual property portfolio that includes more than 170 patents in either issued or pending status, OPCO recently commenced initial shipments of both its environmentally-friendly Switchgrass Natural Cat Litter™ with BioChar (http://dtn.fm/SeMk8) and its technology-powered Intelligent Pet Care™ product line (http://dtn.fm/jPs9U). Based upon the early market acceptance of these innovations and initial sales bookings for the month of October, OPCO’s management team is currently “guardedly optimistic” about the company’s prospects for sustained growth in the fourth quarter of 2016 and beyond.

“Beyond 2016, our strategy is to achieve double-digit growth in sales and net income with an emphasis on developing and launching proprietary, innovative products and entering appropriate new market segments,” continued Tsengas.

Central to these development efforts is a newly-announced partnership with Paulee Cleantec Ltd., an international leader in eco-friendly solutions for the management of human and animal waste. Through this partnership, the two companies will seek to jointly develop and commercialize a portable solution to the growing environmental concerns associated with improperly managed pet waste. Paulee Cleantec has already developed a powerful proof-of-concept waste system that uses an exothermic oxidation process to “convert animal feces into an odor-free ash fertilizer in less than a minute.”

“In addition, we recently completed contracts with a leading direct TV (DRTV) marketing company to test market several of our new electronic interactive cat toys for a possible DRTV campaign to launch sometime in the second quarter of 2017,” added Tsengas. “We have many ‘irons in the fire’ and are very excited about the future.”

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.OurPets.com

OPCO CFO Scott Mendes Presenting at the MicroCap Conference

Earlier today, OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) announced that Scott Mendes, the company’s chief financial officer, will be presenting alongside executives from 60 other companies at this year’s MicroCap Conference, which is set to take place October 24-25 at the Hotel Monaco in Philadelphia. Mendes is scheduled to make his presentation on October 25 at 5:00 p.m. Planned topics of discussion include OurPet’s Company’s innovative, trend-setting pet products and accessories, including the cutting-edge OurPets® Intelligent Pet Care™ (http://dtn.fm/sOK6q) product line, which leverages Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technologies to foster a stronger connection between pets and their owners.

For more information on the MicroCap Conference, visit http://dtn.fm/kjJH5

Mendes’s upcoming presentation comes on the heels of a similar presentation by Kathleen Homyock, OPCO’s vice president of sales and business development, at last month’s National Pet Industry Trade Show hosted by the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council (PIJAC) Canada. In her presentation, titled ‘Technology Translated to Pet Fitness, Food and Fun’, Homyock offered an in-depth look at how intelligent technology accessories can help pet owners more effectively monitor the health and wellbeing of their pets. These benefits are at the core of the company’s Intelligent Pet Care™ product line, including the SmartScoop – Intelligent Litter Box (http://dtn.fm/7eSSn), the SmartLink Feeder – Intelligent Pet Bowl (http://dtn.fm/8rEpu) and the SmartLink Waterer – Intelligent Water Fountain (http://dtn.fm/6NllS).

“It is always interesting to speak with industry professionals about how smart technology is changing pet products,” Homyock stated in a recent news release. “I was excited to have the opportunity to speak at the show in September and I am even more excited to work for a company that values this technology and continuously works to bring intelligent health and fitness monitoring products into the marketplace.”

OurPet’s Company’s commitment to innovation doesn’t end with its Intelligent Pet Care™ product line. According to data from the American Pet Products Association, there are currently about 175 million companion dogs and cats in the United States alone, with roughly 650 million worldwide. The growth of the pet population in recent years has led to pet waste becoming a significant environmental concern, with companion dogs producing roughly 10 million tons of waste annually in the U.S. OurPet’s Company is currently focused on creating environmentally-friendly solutions to the growing problem. Through a new partnership with Paulee Cleantec, Ltd., OurPet’s Company aims to develop and commercialize innovative solutions to the environmental issues stemming from improperly managed pet waste.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ourpets.com

OPCO Teaches Old Dogs (and Cats) New Tricks with its OurPets® Intelligent Pet Care™ Product Line

OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) is proving the adage “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” wrong with its OurPets® Intelligent Pet Care™ line of products. According to the April 2016 issue of industry journal Pet Age, “OurPet’s Company showcased what is perhaps the most complete line of technology-integrated products, Intelligent Pet Care,” at the Global Pet Expo in Orlando, Florida from March 16-18.

“Pets are smarter than you may think, but it’s often difficult for them to clearly communicate their needs,” says Dr. Steve Tsengas, founder and CEO of OurPet’s Company. In other words, for cats and dogs, dumb doesn’t mean stupid. Since they cannot speak, they need help getting our attention. And that is exactly what the OurPets® Intelligent Pet Care™ line of products (http://dtn.fm/1qVBg) is designed to do.

Dr. Tsengas is right. Earlier this year Nature World News reported (http://dtn.fm/5ySP7) on a study of border collies conducted jointly by the London School of Economics (LSE) and the University of Edinburgh which ‘found… dogs have measurable IQs, much like people’. Border collies, used as sheep dogs, are particularly smart. Stanley Coren, a canine expert and professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia, found that the average border collie, poodle or German shepherd was on par with two-year-olds in terms of language. In basic arithmetic, ‘they would trump a 3- or 4-year-old’ (http://dtn.fm/PI9nk).

At the National Pet Industry Trade Show on September 17-18, at the International Centre Mississauga in Canada, Kathleen Homyock, vice president of sales and business development, talked about how OurPets® intelligent technology accessories might ‘talk’ for pets and enable their owners to monitor their health and wellbeing in a presentation titled ‘Technology Translated to Food, Fun and Fitness’ (http://dtn.fm/2qUer).

Homyock’s presentation highlighted the OurPets® Intelligent Pet Care™ line, the industry’s first pet care lifestyle brand that offers a complete line of smart products for monitoring pets’ health. The Intelligent Pet Care™ line leverages a combination of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technologies to empower pets to indicate their needs, enabling a stronger connection between pet and owner for more complete care. The products in the line are controlled and accessed through the IntelligentPetLink™ smartphone app.

The line includes the SmartScoop® – Intelligent Litter Box (http://dtn.fm/UR4xf), which uses infrared technology to sense when your cat goes in and out of the box. It, accordingly, engages a mechanism that scoops the waste into a bin, simultaneously making a report via Bluetooth® to the smartphone app.

A SmartLink™ Tag (http://dtn.fm/j77H1) can be attached to your pet’s collar. When paired with the OurPets® Intelligent Pet Care™ products, it allows monitoring. If your pet is wearing it, the SmartLink™ Waterer- Intelligent Water Fountain (http://dtn.fm/7ROrs) will use Bluetooth® technology to dispense filtered water from its reservoir through a two-tier waterfall design.

The SmartLink™ Feeder – Intelligent Pet Bowl (http://dtn.fm/Dt2ZJ), which employs the same technology, regulates and monitors your pet’s feeding regime. And the SmartLink™ Gateway – Wi-Fi Pet Care Connector (http://dtn.fm/6HiOt) converts a short-range Bluetooth® signal into a long-range Wi-Fi signal so you can monitor your pets’ outside of the home.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ourpets.com

OPCO Teams with Paulee Cleantec to Drive Innovation in Pet Waste Management

Earlier today, OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) announced a partnership with Paulee Cleantec Ltd., an international leader in the development of eco-friendly solutions for the management of human and animal waste. Together, the two companies intend to leverage their extensive intellectual property portfolios to address the rising environmental impact associated with pet waste. According to Dr. Steven Tsengas, chairman and chief executive officer of OPCO, the companies will look toward Paulee Cleantec’s existing proof-of-concept waste management technology, which uses “an exothermic oxidation process to convert animal feces into an odor-free ash fertilizer in less than a minute,” as a starting point in their efforts to “commercialize an initial, portable dog waste product,” along with other future applications.

“We are very pleased to partner with OurPet’s and realize the potential of our technology,” Dr. Oded Halperin, founder and chairman of Paulee Cleantec, added in this morning’s news release. “We look forward to applying our expertise to the partnership, as OurPet’s has the innovative technology, the marketing/sales channels and most of all the strong entrepreneurial drive to bring our mission to success.”

With pet ownership figures being on the rise in recent years, the importance of managing pet waste has become increasingly evident. Municipalities across the country have imposed stiff fines designed to ensure that pet owners properly clean up after their pets, and for good reason. Industry studies have linked pet waste to a number of environmental issues, including contamination of underground water levels, lakes and streams. In total, it’s estimated that as much as 30 percent of the bacteria found in typical water samples and up to 50 percent of the bacteria in the air can be linked to dog waste alone.

These statistics highlight the market potential of an innovative solution to the growing issue of pet waste. According to the American Pet Products Association (http://dtn.fm/mPLS6), about 65 percent of U.S. households, some 79.7 million homes, currently own a pet. This figure is up from just 56 percent in 1988, when the survey was first conducted. All told, companion dogs in the U.S. produce roughly 10 million tons of waste annually, and the cat population results in approximately two million tons of litter sent to landfills each year.

OPCO’s partnership with Paulee Cleantec is just one channel through which the company is currently addressing this environmental concern. OurPet’s has over 170 patents issued or pending, many of which relate directly to pet waste management. The company’s current product offerings in the space include its Switchgrass Natural Cat Litter with BioChar (http://dtn.fm/Eqn3M); manual and semiautomatic cat litter boxes; and the innovative SmartScoop® – Intelligent Litter Box (http://dtn.fm/a9VDE), which uses Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies to help pet owners better manage the waste activity of their furry friends while simultaneously monitoring pets’ elimination behaviors.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ourpets.com

OPCO Executive Presents Latest Tech Trends at Pet Industry Trade Show in Canada

Before the opening bell, OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) highlighted a recent presentation by Kathleen Homyock, the company’s vice president of sales and business development. The presentation, titled “Technology Translated to Pet Fitness, Food and Fun,” was made at last month’s National Pet Industry Trade Show, which was hosted by the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council (Canada). Homyock used her time at the podium to showcase intelligent technology accessories, such as OPCO’s recently launched OurPets® Intelligent Pet Care™ product line (http://dtn.fm/F64bL), and their ability to help pet owners effectively monitor the health and wellbeing of their pets.

“It is always interesting to speak with industry professionals about how smart technology is changing pet products,” Homyock stated in this morning’s news release. “I was excited to have the opportunity to speak at the show in September and I am even more excited to work for a company that values this technology and continuously works to bring intelligent health and fitness monitoring products into the marketplace.”

To view Homyock’s full presentation, visit http://dtn.fm/0EfMl

The emergence of intelligent technology accessories in the pet industry is particularly intriguing when studying pet ownership statistics. According to research firm Mintel, an impressive 75 percent of Americans in their 30s have dogs, while roughly 51 percent have cats. This figure is substantially higher than that of the overall population, which clocks in at about 50 percent for dogs and 35 percent for cats. All told, today’s young Americans are much more likely to have pets than their predecessors.

This trend is significant, as pet owners between the ages of 18 and 34 have shown the most open to adopting new technologies to care for their furry friends. A 2015 survey by Packaged Facts found that the age group led the way in the use of webcams, smartphones, motion sensors and collars with tracking devices to follow their dogs’ activities. With these technologies already being implemented, the use of dedicated devices leveraging the Internet of Things model is a rapidly growing trend upon which OurPet’s Company is currently positioned to capitalize.

The company’s OurPets® Intelligent Pet Care™ line utilizes smart technology to seamlessly monitor pet health through the use of the free IntelligentPetLink™ smartphone app (http://dtn.fm/6QnA1). The line’s products currently include the SmartScoop – Intelligent Litter Box (http://dtn.fm/E50ip), the SmartLink Feeder – Intelligent Pet Bowl (http://dtn.fm/1SsjU), and the SmartLink Waterer – Intelligent Water Fountain (http://dtn.fm/R3wp3).

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ourpets.com

OPCO Positioned for Enhanced Role on Fast Growing Pet Care Market

Already a leading provider of unique and highly innovative pet care solutions ranging from toys to feeding and waste management, Ohio-based OurPet’s Company, Inc. (OTCQX: OPCO) expects to expand its presence on the fast-growing pet care market through a unique line of products designed to awaken a pet’s natural instincts.

The company’s innovative products, as other premium pet care solutions available on the market, cater to the needs of a growing number of customers who are treating their pets like family members and are looking to buy only the most high-end products for them, according to an analysis from industry research report provider Sandler Research (http://dtn.fm/Xxtx2).

The report also shows that the global pet care market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 4.72% from 2016 to 2020, driven mostly by high profit margins for manufacturers offering a wide range of specialized, premium products. The highest revenue-generating geographic region in the market will be North America, expected to hold more than 40% of the market share.

Despite fierce competition on the pet care market, companies that consistently provide top-quality, premium products will only strengthen their positions, while many vendors will also take action to expand their business to emerging markets such as the Asia-Pacific, Central and South America, the report indicates.

With its unique line of proprietary pet products distributed both in the United States and overseas, OurPet’s Company therefore seems poised for overcoming its competition and becoming a major player on the market of innovative pet care solutions. The company is committed to developing one-of-a-kind products (http://dtn.fm/6NMdJ) that are patented and unparalleled on the market, based on a unique design that focuses on the health and behavioral needs of pets and their owners.

Keeping in line with its dedication to product innovation, OurPet’s Company recently launched a strong showing of game-changing pet products such as the OurPets® Switchgrass Natural Cat Litter™ (http://dtn.fm/7bBA5) – a high-end, all natural and fully biodegradable litter, and the Intelligent Pet Care™ (http://dtn.fm/En6rt) Bluetooth® line of products, which monitor pet behavior via a smartphone app. And despite a slight decline in revenue in Q2 that followed record numbers in Q1, OurPet’s Company anticipates a solid performance and record revenue again in the second half of the year, as a direct consequence of the new product launches.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ourpets.com

OPCO Anticipates Strong Performance in Second Half of 2016 Despite Slight Decline in Q2

There are very few industries that can claim going through recession relatively unscathed, and the pet industry is one of them. Growing steadily by approximately 5.4% every year since 2002, the industry continues the trend this year as well, being expected to reach $62.75 billion in revenue in the U.S. by the end of the year. This figure marks a 4% increase from 2015. The trend is largely due to a general tendency to humanize our pets and treat them as members of the family, offering them the best care possible, whether it’s high-end accessories, medical services or super premium food.

Although competition is fierce, companies offering innovative or niche products are highly successful and anticipate the global growth trend to be mirrored by their own revenue this year. This is also the case of OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO), a leading provider of proprietary pet products in the United States and overseas. The company designs and manufactures a wide range of innovative, high-quality accessories and products, from toys to feeding and waste management solutions.

After a strong showing and record results in Q1 (http://nnw.fm/SW0Tp), the company reported a slight decline in revenue for the second quarter to $5.4 million, 2.7% lower than the $5.6 million reported in Q2 2015. The decline was caused primarily by a temporary drop in purchase orders from various major retail customers. The drop in orders does not however signal a reduced interest in the company’s offering. On the contrary, it was due to a major retailer clearing out its existing inventory to make room for upcoming OurPet’s products to be launched in the second half of 2016. The Q2 report also indicated that the company had a record order pipeline of $1.9 million and that, despite the temporary drop in sales, it was able to reduce inventory to a little under $7.2 million from $8 million at the beginning of the year.

The company’s CEO, Dr. Steven Tsengas, is not overly concerned about the lower revenue numbers and believes that if the inventory reduction hadn’t happened, OPCO would have shown strong growth in Q2 as well.

In addition, Dr. Tsengas is confident that the company will catch up in the second half of 2016. Based on the overall market tendencies, historical performance and the new products it will put on the market, OurPet’s anticipates a solid performance and record revenue again in Q3 and Q4, especially on the heels of its SuperZoo National trade show participation in early August. At the event, the company launched a strong showing of innovative pet products, including OurPets® Switchgrass Natural Cat Litter™ (http://nnw.fm/4LFug) – a high-end, all natural and fully biodegradable litter, and the Intelligent Pet Care™ (http://nnw.fm/Tp7gJ) BlueTooth® line of products, which monitor pet behavior via a smartphone app. OurPet’s also recently introduced a new generation of electronic cat toys.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ourpets.com

OPCO Announces Third Licensing Agreement Related to Polymer Bonded Patent

Earlier today, OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) announced that it has licensed its U.S. patent number 8,973,529 B1 to a major stainless steel pet bowl manufacturer based in India. This agreement marks OPCO’s third licensing deal related to the ‘529 patent since the company announced its intent to license the IP on June 9, 2016. According to this morning’s news release, OPCO is currently in ongoing negotiations with several other manufacturers regarding additional licensing agreements related to the polymer bonded patent, which was originally issued March 10, 2015.

Under the terms of the newly-announced, non-exclusive deal, the licensee will now be permitted to sell stainless steel pet bowls with polymer materials applied to any portion of the bottom, as described in the ‘529 patent. In exchange, OPCO will receive a royalty for each unit sold in the United States.

“The polymer bonding on stainless steel technology has proven very popular and has attracted many domestic and foreign competitors who have not always appreciated US patent regulations, thus necessitating legal action,” Dr. Steven Tsengas, chief executive officer of OPCO, stated in a recent news release.

In June, the company highlighted its successful defense of the ‘529 patent against a range of competitors, both international and domestic. However, as a result of the considerable time and expense related to these suits, OPCO’s management team instituted general licensing of the patent to qualified manufacturers in an effort to both expand usage of the related technology and bolster the company’s financial growth.

Since its founding in 1995, OPCO has remained committed to enhancing the bond between pets and pet parents through the development of high quality, innovative products. Today, the company boasts an intellectual property portfolio featuring more than 160 individual patents spanning the entirety of the roughly $77 billion U.S. pet industry. OPCO continued to build on its position at the forefront of the pet market earlier this year through the presentation of its new Intelligent Pet Care Bluetooth® product line and Switchgrass Natural Cat Litter™ at the SuperZoo National trade show in Las Vegas. Leaning on the marketability of these new products, as well as a sizable portfolio of proven favorites, OPCO’s management team is looking forward to a strong finish to 2016, as noted by Tsengas in a recent news release.

“Due to the seasonal nature of the pet industry, we typically experience our strongest sales in the second half of the year. We have no reason to believe this year will be any different,” he added.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ourpets.com

Wild Cat OPCO is No Dog

OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) may serve both cats and dogs with its innovative range of pet care solutions. However, the company itself is most definitely not a dog, as defined in the Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) Growth Share Matrix. Rather, it’s a wild cat that has been churning out a string of ingenious pet care products. If OurPet’s Company keeps up its wild ways, there is the distinct possibility it may morph into a star.

Back in the early 1970s, BCG developed the Growth-Share Matrix as a portfolio-planning tool. BCG assessed each business unit within a company’s portfolio, taking into account two determinants of profitability: market growth and market share relative to the largest competitor. Market growth gives some indication of the unit’s future prospects while relative market share is a sign of competitive advantage. Mapping a business unit to a cell in the matrix thus helps determine whether the unit would be a net user or contributor of cash and whether the portfolio decision should be develop, maintain or dispose.

The Growth-Share Matrix classified business units into four types: dogs, cash cows, stars, and question marks or wild cats. Dogs neither generate nor consume a large amount of cash since they have low market share and a low growth rate. Cash cows are net contributors of cash. They are typically leaders in a mature market, providing a return on assets that is greater than the market growth rate. Stars generate a lot of cash but tend to use it all up because of their high growth rate. Wild cats are businesses that are growing rapidly and so require large cash infusions.

There is every indication that OurPet’s Company is a wild cat on its way to become a star. The company has been growing at an annually compounded rate of over 6% - twice the industry rate. Focusing on high-growth categories in the pet care industry, OurPet’s Company’s very first product was the Big Dog Feeder® in the $100 million per annum healthy feeding and storage systems segment. This product line now extends over 81 SKUs that include the Store-N-Feed® Single Adjustable Feeder, the SmartLinkTM Feeder – Intelligent Pet Bowl and the SmartLinkTM Waterer – Intelligent Water Fountain.

OurPet’s Company is also in the $250 million a year feline waste and odor control market with its OurPets® Skoop-N-Pak, OurPets® Pick-Up Bags and its ground-breaking OurPets® Switchgrass Natural Cat Litter with Biochar. And the company is tackling the $1 billion a year segment of interactive cat and dog toys and accessories with a host of clever products. This product line uses Blue Tooth and Wi-Fi communication technologies so our beloved pets can “talk” to us; the line includes the amazing OurPets® Catty Whack® and the Intelligent Pet Care® line of products.

OurPet’s Company has a robust pipeline of some 160 patents issued and or pending. It also has a strong diversified product portfolio of about 1,000 SKUs. The company is particularly focused on finding solutions to the pathologies that accompany aging in pets. It deserves a star for that.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ourpets.com.

OPCO's Successful Approach to Design, Branding Explained By Audiences’ Reception of ‘The Secret Life of Pets’

The blockbuster success of Comcast’s (NASDAQ: CMCSA) Universal Studios production, ‘The Secret Life of Pets’, which did a whopping $104 million plus in its first weekend at the box office and raked in over $254 million worldwide in just 11 days following its debut – is no surprise to the folks at OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO). The company’s OurPets® brand, in particular, which consists of high-end designs crafted to suit the ergonomics as well as psychology of our beloved animal friends, has become synonymous amongst “pet parent” consumers with the very best that they can give to their animals – animals who are increasingly treated as bonafide members of the family, complete with all the associated spending horizons.

This growing tendency among pet owners to treat animals as fully-fledged members of the family has several obvious market dynamic impacts, with consumers across all segments (but particularly the high-end consumers) spending markedly more on their beloved animals. Central Garden & Pet Company (NASDAQ: CENT) certainly has been feeling the juice, with long-term EPS growth projected around 10 percent.

Retailers are actively cashing in on the success of ‘The Secret Life of Pets’, and the collaboration with PetSmart to do a special collection of pet accoutrements branded to the film (which have been selling like hotcakes) speaks volumes about sector potential and marketing, especially for an ingenious design shop like OurPets, where the recent roll out of the company’s Intelligent Pet Care™ line of Bluetooth/Wi-Fi connected feeders, water fountains, waste systems, and usability devices, such as the SmartLink™ Tag for a pet’s collar, has been received by consumers and industry players alike with great enthusiasm.

A rock-solid IP war chest of over 170 issued and pending patents, which accounts for roughly 75 percent of the company’s revenues, was recently augmented by a shining example of why consumers have come to love OurPets as much as they love these animated films – as OPCO announced general licensing in early June of its bonded polymer material technology for pet bowl bottoms. The company has a variety of high quality polymer bonded stainless steel bowl designs available through its Durapet® brand (as well as via private label) and its fierce/successful defense of its proprietary polymer bonding on stainless steel technologies is a clear shot across the bow that investors would be wise to take note of.

This is a visionary company with elegant designs that speak directly to the most lucrative segment of the pet supply consumer space, and it is as militant about defending its IP portfolio, as it is shrewd about knowing when and how to do so.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ourpets.com

OPCO's Innovative Mousetraps for Cats and Dogs

If Ralph Waldo Emerson’s theorem, paraphrased as ‘build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door’, is valid, OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) is following ‘a broad hard-beaten road’ to success. OurPet’s Company got into the pet care industry precisely to make the aphoristic mousetrap better. It’s doing that and making new mousetraps too. Writing in 1855, Emerson was expressing his belief that ‘common fame’, what we would now call a good reputation, would eventually make itself known, which is true for OurPet’s Company, a company with a reputation for innovation. It is a company that aimed to revolutionize and disrupt the rather staid pet care industry and has already been doing so for over 20 years. The rewards from this creative approach have been showing up in both the top and bottom lines.

Net revenues have increased steadily over the past five years, rising at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.86 percent. This is well above the industry CAGR of 4.44 percent. OurPet’s Company’s sales in 2010 were $17.1M. The latest 10-K filing reports sales in 2015 were $23.8M. Gross profit has been improving, as well; and so has the gross profit margin, which has climbed from 23.6 percent in 2011 to 31.7 percent in 2015. Particularly encouraging for shareholders has been the moderate increase in outstanding shares, which went up by a little over 10 percent during the last five years. In addition, net income per share has risen by 600 percent from a paltry $0.01 in 2011 to $0.07 in 2015. Taken together with the increase in income available to shareholders, this shows modest dilution risk.

OurPet’s Company has been serving the pet care market since 1995. It started with just one product: the Big Dog Feeder®. Since then its product line has exploded. The company has approximately 1,000 stock-keeping units (SKUs) available to customers over a diversified range of product solutions. Added to the current product offerings is a broad pipeline of now-developing and soon-to-be-developed products and line extensions based on OurPet’s Company’s 160 patents issued and pending.

OurPet’s Company’s strategy is to focus on high-growth categories in the pet care market, which overall is expected to reach $62.75 billion in 2016. The company is in the feeding and storage systems segment, which is estimated at $100M annually, with novel products such as the Barking Bistro®, the High Rise Diner® and its OurPets® Tilt-A-Bowls. It has a foothold in the $250M a year feline waste and odor control category with its SmartScoop® Intelligent Litter Box, Kitty Potty™ No Touch Litter Box System and the OurPets® Switchgrass Natural Cat Litter with BioChar.

It’s also blazing a trail in the toys and accessories segment, which is estimated at $1.0 billion annually, with the amazing OurPets® Catty Whack® and the Intelligent Pet Care® line of products. The Intelligent Pet Care® line applies Bluetooth and Wi-Fi technologies to keep us in closer touch with our pets by signaling changes in their behavior through digital applications. OurPet’s Company’s mission statement is ‘to exceed pet and pet parent expectations with innovative solutions’. They might have added investor expectations to that declaration.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ourpets.com

OPCO's Continued Product Innovation Sets Stage for another Strong Showing at SuperZoo, Solid FY16 Results

The World Pet Association’s version of E3 started this week at Las Vegas’s Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, giving companies in the pet industry the chance to get their brands in front of over 15,000 of the sector’s most influential buyers. As one of the pet industry’s biggest trade shows, SuperZoo 2016, opens its doors, it makes sense to look back at the success OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) had at the show last year. Winning “Best New Cat Product” at the 2015 SuperZoo for its OurPets® Catty Whack® helped see OurPet’s Company to record Q4 and FY15 financial results. This ingenious little platform, with a scratch pad on top and six holes around the perimeter from which a fast-moving feather wand randomly darts out, also features the company’s patented Electronic RealMouse® sound, brilliantly simulating the hunt, and feeding/satisfying the cat’s natural instincts.

The instant rapport with consumers established by this and other similarly well-designed products has endeared the company to “pet parent” consumers, allowing OurPet’s Company direct access to premium consumer demographics within the sector. A firm legal grasp on its growing portfolio of over 160 issued or pending patents and the ability to captivate consumers with elegant, high-quality, extremely clever designs, spanning everything from feeders and waterers to waste disposal solutions and toys, has cemented the company’s retail brand presence and the positioning of its ever-evolving array of products. This proven ability by OPCO to lock-in brand positioning with tightly-held IP and designs is a big part of the valuation story for the company moving forward.

Given its success last year, it is little wonder that the company is doubling down at this year’s SuperZoo with the rollout of its OurPets® Switchgrass Natural Cat Litter™ with BioChar, an all-natural and fully biodegradable litter that speaks directly to the core of the high-end consumer’s consciousness. As was pointed out late last year by Netherlands-based Innova Market Insights (http://nnw.fm/wVA1Q), consumers want simple products with increased ingredient transparency and a back-to-basics approach that is focused on key positioning targets like organic and GMO-free. This is especially true when it comes to luxury and premium consumers who buy OurPet’s Company brand high-end feeder bowls and other offerings, like its new Intelligent Pet Care™ line of smart products, which have the ability to monitor pet behavior via the IntelligentPetLink™ smartphone app.

Years of product R&D went into this new cat litter and the superbly effective/sustainable combination of pine wood chips, which have undergone thermochemical decomposition (pyrolysis) to produce activated, non-marking carbon (biochar), with North American switchgrass speaks volumes about how well OPCO understands its target demos. Not only does the biochar process sequester CO2 while utilizing produced gasses as a clean-burning fuel, the biochar has proven to be extremely effective at soaking up moisture and odor. By this same token, switchgrass is a non-feedstock biomass typically used for applications like flood control, making it another ultra-green ingredient choice that both delivers performance and speaks directly to savvy high-end consumers about the product’s sustainability, and the company’s forward vectors.

Investors should keep an ear to the ground for news out about OurPet’s Company coming out of SuperZoo 2016, because if the latest product rollout is any indication, this could be another banner year for OPCO.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ourpets.com

OPCO Passes a Major Marketing Milestone

OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) is known for its high quality, innovative products that improve the health, safety, comfort and well-being of pets. It’s a company driven to differentiate itself by employing the latest technology. Now, OurPet’s Company is demonstrating its marketing savvy with its recent launch of a Direct Response Television (DRTV) campaign in conjunction with AsSeenOnTV.pro (http://dtn.fm/fP4ep).

Most of us are familiar with DRTV, which offers viewers the opportunity to purchase from a commercial, through the late-night, early-morning programming known as the infomercial, the long-form versions of which seem to go on and on about the latest widget you must have. It could be a Pet Rock or perhaps a Pocket Hose. Such products have given DRTV unsavory associations. However, the genre has since reinvented itself. Its main objective is no longer harvesting direct sales. DRTV campaigns are now mostly employed to test products and messaging against targeted consumer segments. More importantly, DRTV aims to provide fodder to get nationwide retailers like Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), Target (NYSE: TGT), Home Depot (NYSE: HD) and others to take a bite. As Priceonomics (http://dtn.fm/vK2fv) puts it, ‘DRTV viewers today are the beta audience for Wal-Mart shoppers tomorrow’. ‘Most of today’s infomercials… aren’t necessarily designed to sell products at all; they’re designed to test the salability of those products in a mass-market environment like Wal-Mart’.

DRTV campaigns that get mass retailers to sign distribution contracts have proved to be formidable marketing strategies resulting in astoundingly successful products and product lines. ProActiv, a skin care line, brings in over a billion dollars in revenue a year, according to Mental Floss (http://dtn.fm/2aKUy). PedEgg, which scrapes your heel to remove calluses, has sold $450 million since launch, and the George Foreman Grill brings in $202 million in annual revenues. Many DRTV promotions are branded with the AsSeenOnTV logo, which ‘is a sort of informal trade affiliation and open-source brand mark representing major DRTV brands in the retail business’.

Wider distribution may be the catalyst that takes OurPet’s Company’s business to the next level. The company has been growing at a rate 50 percent higher than the industry. Data provided by the American Pet Products Association (APPA) (http://dtn.fm/1yZH3) indicates that total U.S. pet industry expenditures rose, at a CAGR of 4.44 percent, from $48.35 billion in 2010 to $60.25 billion in 2015. During the same period, OurPet’s Company’s net revenues went from $17.1 million (2010) to $23.9 million (2015), increasing at a CAGR of 6.86 percent.

Some of the products likely to charm those late night somnambulists include the OurPets® Catty Whack®, an unpredictable game of hide and seek designed for cats of all ages, which was first introduced in 2015. The introduction of the OurPets® Catty Whack® actually resulted in the genesis of the Intelligent Pet Care® line of products, which offers ‘the application of Blue Tooth and Wi-Fi to improve the connectivity between humans and pets’. The line includes the Intelligent Pet Care® Feeder, Waterer and Intelligent Litter Box, all of which allow pet owners to monitor their pet’s behavior through the IntelligentPetLink® smartphone app, downloadable from the Apple app store and Google Play.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ourpets.com

OPCO an Undervalued Play in an Increasingly Hot Sector

Coming off of another quarter of record-breaking financials, with Q1 FY16 net revenues and net income up 10.3 and 24.7 percent respectively YOY, OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) chairman and CEO Dr. Steven Tsengas recently told Austin, Texas-based IR/PR/SMR firm DreamTeamNetwork in an audio interview (http://dtn.fm/5z69S), that he thinks 2016 international sales could be one the biggest positive surprises from the company moving forward. This just after an extremely strong showing of the company’s new OurPets® Intelligent Pet Care™ line of smart products at the industry’s premier event, the Global Pet Expo, which is presented every year by the American Pet Products Association (APPA) and Pet Industry Distributors Association (PIDA).

Tsengas tipped his hand about international market traction horizons to DreamTeamNetwork in the aforementioned interview, explaining that the company’s OurPets and the PetZone brands were already seeing very strong floor play in China, Japan and South Korea, where the company has localized its initial efforts, and built up a tight rapport with consumers. With around 11 million dogs and 10 million cats (Japan Pet Food Association), Japan is a market that is noted for appreciating good design and should be prime development territory for OPCO, which should have no trouble adding to its position here. The same is true over in South Korea, where a similar cultural taste for ingenious design predominates, and where the pet population is on track to hit one million for the first time this year (http://dtn.fm/v0Vew).

The global pet market is a nice, stable growth environment for an innovator like OPCO, which is growing its retail footprint/consumer exposure via both its pet parent/prosumer OurPets brand and its mass market brand, PetZone. The latest Packaged Facts report that looks closely at the bullish scenario developing in the sector, with increasing interest by private equity and other M&A activity on the rise, lays out the case pretty well as to how there is plenty of room for growth. The continued strength of operators such as the country’s biggest rural lifestyle retailer, Tractor Supply Company (NASDAQ: TSCO), with its 1,500-plus stores and third consecutive year hosting Nestle’s (OTC: NSRGY) Purina Days last month, offers clear indication to the investment community about the true bedrock potential, and upper-limit scope of this market.

Underlying market dynamics like those driving the rise of TSCO have made other retailers and sector majors, such as Petco and PetSmart, hot properties for investors who are looking to cash in on people’s growing obsession with their pets. These same dynamics should also help propel lower-hanging investment fruit in the midcap range on down to new-found securities stardom. The market for pet products and services is currently on track to hit upwards of $91 billion in annual sales by 2019 (http://dtn.fm/vJ2I5), and you can bet your bottom dollar that the smart money out there is hard at work injecting further consolidative forces into this seemingly recession-proof consumer market.

OurPet’s Company is a great hidden gem type valuation story amid all this, and the company also has the IP/visionary design capability to surf the momentum with style, capitalizing on sector buzz in order to bring its exceptional product designs to light before the eyes of eager, pet-loving consumers. In the U.S. alone we have around 163 million or more cats and dogs, and the tendency to treat these pets like fully-fledged members of the family is steadily on the rise. This is a trend that OPCO is poised perfectly to benefit from with their OurPets brand of premium offerings like gorgeous, heavy-duty stainless steel feeding bowls that have a proprietary, patented, permanently-molded rubber ring on the bottom that prevents sliding and noise when the animal eats. Similarly elegant looking, yet robust and functional designs, each of them engineered with careful consideration of the animal’s needs, as well as the owner’s décor, have come to typify the OurPets brand in the minds of high-end and not-so-high-end consumers alike.

This dual brand approach by OPCO is ideal for courting the more lucrative high-end pet parent prosumer, and, as more people gravitate into this fold, OPCO will continue to shine more and more brightly as a design shop through the OurPets brand. The tendency for people to treat their pets like bonafide family members is on the rise globally as per capita incomes rise, and, in part, this may be due to the phenomenon of people who (as a country becomes more affluent) typically wait longer to have their first child, in which case the pet fills an emotional void.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ourpets.com

OPCO Giving Back with New, Natural Pet Products

Sustainable practices are the topic of conversation in most industries today. Organizations worldwide have a responsibility toward the world we live in, and the pet industry is no exception. At OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO), there is an emphasis on protecting the environment. OPCO develops and markets high quality, innovative products to improve the health, safety, comfort, and enjoyment of pets. The company develops unique and innovative products, which is why most of them are patented. All products reflect an emphasis on designing problem solving solutions for pets and pet owners. Sustainability is part of this.

More is being done every year to make the pet industry as a whole more sustainable. Most recently, the Pet Industry Sustainability Coalition (PISC) launched the Pet Industry Sustainability Toolkit, which was developed for companies in the pet industry to help reduce their impact on the environment. In addition, work is being done to bring sustainability and pet ownership together. OurPet’s Company does everything in its power to have a minimal impact on the environment whenever a new product is being designed, developed, and manufactured. The company produces products with natural ingredients wherever it can, while maintaining a high level of attention on the safety and happiness of people’s pets.

This year, during its June shareholders meeting, OurPet’s Company brought forward its new product: Switchgrass with BioChar Natural Cat Litter. In the presentation, the company shows its findings, comparing the product to some of its competitors’ offerings. The OurPet’s Switchgrass Litter with BioChar produces less than two percent dust, has no odor after 10 minutes, and shows good moisture absorption and high clumping action. Switchgrass Litter with BioChar was tested in February 2016 by Bureau Veritas Testing and proves that the OurPet’s natural cat litter is the top performer among all its competitors.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ourpets.com

OPCO's Creative Destruction in the Pet Care Industry

In his seminal contribution to economic thought published in 1942 and titled Capitalism, Socialism & Democracy, Joseph Schumpeter coined the term ‘creative destruction’ to describe the dynamic operation of the economy. This ‘industrial mutation… incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one’. Schumpeter saw this ‘industrial mutation’ or ‘creative destruction’ as being driven by innovation and, more importantly, by the entrepreneur. For Schumpeter, entrepreneurship was the application of innovation. It was the origination of superior organizational models, the development of more efficient methods of production and a wider range of products offering the consumer more satisfaction or, as economists are fond of saying, greater utility. No doubt the great man would have been happy with the creative destruction at OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO). OPCO is an innovative powerhouse with ‘over 160 patents, issued or pending’ and three-quarters of its revenues come from proprietary products.

OPCO’s story is, indeed, one of innovation. The company was founded in 1996 by entrepreneur Dr. Steve Tsengas because he saw how mired in the past the pet care industry was. He set out to destroy the old ways of thinking about pet care. And so, like the plot of many a good story, OPCO’s path of innovation is one of adventure and happy endings. The development of the Intelligent Pet Care™ line is one such chapter. The seed was planted at SuperZoo, The National Show for Pet Retailers, which was held July 21 – 23, 2015, at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas when OurPets® Catty Whack® received the Best New Cat Product Showcase Award.

OurPets® Catty Whack® is an unpredictable game of hide and seek designed for cats of all ages. Cats love the electronic RealMouse® sound and the erratic movement of the feather keeps the cat guessing as it darts in and out at random. Catty Whack® sales ‘have started accelerating at the end of the year’.

The success of OurPets® Catty Whack® sparked anew the creative energy of OPCO’s designers and resulted in the development of the Intelligent Pet Care™ line. As Dr. Steve Tsengas explained in a recent MissionIR interview, the Intelligent Pet Care™ line of products is ‘the application of Bluetooth® and Wi-Fi to improve the connectivity between humans and pets’. Our pets cannot communicate with us in ways that we will understand. Nevertheless, we can infer a lot by collecting and analyzing data on their behavior.

The Intelligent Pet Care™ product line includes the SmartLink™ Feeder, SmartLink™ Waterer and SmartScoop – Intelligent Litter Box, which allows pet parents to monitor their pet’s behavior through the IntelligentPetLink™ smartphone app, which can be downloaded from the Apple or Android app store. The IntelligentPetLink™ smartphone app monitors a variety of data from the various Intelligent Pet Care™ products, such as the frequency and duration of feeding, water drinking and waste elimination.

The SmartLink™ Feeder – Intelligent Pet Bowl fits well in households with many pets. Using the Bluetooth® technology it will detect when your pet, wearing a unique SmartLink™ Tag is near and will only open for that tag. This eliminates feeding confrontations between pets, protects diet-sensitive meals and prevents small children from getting to the pet’s food.

Another product in the line is the SmartLink™ Waterer – Intelligent Water Fountain, which, employing the Bluetooth® technology, will detect when your pet, wearing a unique SmartLink™ Tag that is paired with the waterer, is near. It will then dispense filtered water from the reservoir and so allow your pet to drink clean, running water.

The line includes the SmartScoop® – Intelligent Litter Box, which uses infrared technology to sense when your cat enters and exits the box and engages the scoop mechanism accordingly to clean the box.

Over its 20 years in the pet care industry (the OurPets® brand has been around since 1996), the company has been practicing Schumpeterian creative destruction. OurPet’s Company has been destroying the obsolescent and creating the future for pets and for pet parents.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ourpets.com

OPCO Eyes Mounting International Market Share as Key Bottom-Line Driver

OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) already dominates the cat wall at many retail locations, with superb offerings like its OurPets® Catty Whack®, featuring patented Electronic RealMouse® sound and an erratically moving feather wand, which darts in and out of holes in around the perimeter of this carpet scratching area-topped marvel. With an impressive and growing retail presence that spans majors like Petco and PetSmart, as well as numerous smaller retailers like Pet Supermarket, in addition to ecommerce giant Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) – further expansion into international markets could give this focused product design innovator real momentum. The same capacity to captivate western markets which OPCO has demonstrated already, with high-quality feeders and waste disposal systems, as well as toys that exercise an animal’s instincts and stimulate its senses, should easily help the company’s portfolio leap over cultural and language barriers in Asia. The warm reception OurPet’s Company has already received in Japan and South Korea is solid evidence of this.

Pet ownership is not only on the rise here in the states, but around the world as well. Globally, some 57 percent or more of the world’s consumers own pets, according to a recent GfK study (http://dtn.fm/0cKxR), with dogs the most popular choice at around 33 percent, and cats coming in second at around 23 percent. One place this rise is particularly evident is among the growing middle class in China, and across the rest of Asia as well. Beijing-based consultant firm Zhongjinqixin did a sweeping survey late last year which showed that there are over 100 million registered pets now in China (http://dtn.fm/gc4PE), with 62 percent of those pets being dogs, and a whopping 10 percent of the total number of all pets consolidated in Guangdong Province.

For a relatively small operator like OurPet’s Company – which has rapidly carved out a name for itself as a provider of ingeniously designed, high-quality toys, feeders and waste management solutions through its pet parent/prosumer brand OurPets®, as well as its mass market brand Pet Zone® – this international market could be a big opportunity. With 160 patents issued or pending and some three-quarters of its revenues stemming directly from the sale of proprietary products, OPCO is a success story waiting to pop on the global stage, and the international market could be one of the accelerants that gets this party really started. Bidding wars at home in the sector and a thriving consumer culture abroad that is leaning more and more toward increased pet ownership is a powerful one-two knockout punch for a little fighter like OPCO – which has the design talent and proven ability to resonate with end markets needed to take things to the next level abroad. With 62 percent of pets in China being dogs, the strong foundation in toys and feeders for dogs that OPCO has established will serve the company well as it reaches out further to this market in particular.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ourpets.com

OPCO Announces General Licensing of Polymer Bonded Pet Bowl Patent to Qualified Companies

Earlier today, OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) announced the general licensing of its U.S. patent relating to the application of a polymer material to the bottom of stainless steel bowls in order to minimize sliding and noise while pets are feeding. Patent US 8,973,529 B1 was originally issued on March 10, 2015. OPCO’s innovative design, which is featured in a wide selection of products under its Durapet® brand, has proven very popular in the pet industry, with a multitude of domestic and foreign competitors infringing upon the design and necessitating legal action.

To date, OPCO has successfully defended its patents against domestic and foreign competitors six times. Most recently, in March, the company reached a favorable settlement agreement with one such competitor over the sale of stainless steel, rubber-bottomed bowls that, according to the filed lawsuit, ‘infringed OurPet’s ‘529 utility patent’. However, pursuing this litigation has proven to be time-consuming, expensive and, in many cases, disruptive to ongoing operations. OPCO’s decision to license its intellectual property related to Patent 8,973,529 B1 is expected to combat these negative effects while expanding the usage of the technology in the pet industry and enhancing OPCO’s overall profitability moving forward.

“In the future, OurPet’s will continue to protect the value of our innovative product lines, and specifically our intellectual property portfolio, which currently includes 160 patents issued or pending,” Dr. Steven Tsengas, president and chief executive officer of OPCO, stated in a news release following the company’s most recent settlement.

As of this morning’s announcement, the company had already agreed to licensing deals with six manufacturers regarding its polymer bonding stainless steel technology, and it is in ongoing negotiations with two more. It’s important to note that OPCO’s decision to license Patent US 8,973,529 B1 does not extend to the remainder of its extensive intellectual property portfolio, which includes a library of patents accounting for approximately 75 percent of the company’s revenues. Other utility patents, including one issued in October 2012 that covers the application of a polymer to the bottom and slightly up the side of a stainless steel bowl, will not be licensed at this time.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ourpets.com

OPCO Using Efficient Organization Methods for Rapid Revenue Growth

OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) features a number of innovative pet accessories, including toys, feeding and storage products, and waste management and odor control products. OurPet’s Company designs one-of-a-kind products that cannot be found anywhere else. Most products are patented, meaning they cannot be found under any other brand in the marketplace. OPCO is motivated by innovation and quality, and it is dedicated to understanding pet requirements, as well as the needs that owners have to keep their pets safe and healthy.

Founded by Dr. Steve Tsengas, OurPet’s Company offers two brands: OurPets®, for the pet specialty channel, and Pet Zone®, which works within the food, drug, and mass market channels. OPCO’s products are marketed worldwide through market specific retailers. Aside from OPCO’s marketing channels, the company is continuously implementing new systems to ensure it is up-to-date with technological changes.

OPCO is made up of a very small, organized team. In addition to having a small team, OurPet’s Company is specifically focused on product development, marketing, and distribution while keeping costs low. This means that instead of building office after office and warehouse after warehouse, OPCO focuses its financial resources on more important factors within the company.

OurPet’s Company’s efficient organizational procedures allow it to have clear goals for the future, both financially and within the market. The company aims for yearly sales growth of anywhere between 15% and 20%, as well as a targeted net income of anywhere between the range of 10% and 12%. OPCO is pursuing growth through strategic acquisitions, which offer the company a wide range of advantages compared to its competitors. The pet industry is still growing worldwide, which is allowing the company to continue developing and expanding. This means an expansion within the current marketplace and the ability to move into new markets.

OurPet’s Company is highly organized and prepared to handle the rapid revenue growth and return on investment it is currently facing. It has positioned itself well within a market that has grown by more than $60 billion over the past 10 years, and thanks to its well established ‘high tech/high touch’ reputation with its investors, it continues to be a key participator within an ever-growing industry.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ourpets.com

OPCO Announces Sponsorship of 65th Annual BetterInvesting National Convention

Before the opening bell, OurPet’s Company (OTCQX: OPCO) announced its sponsorship of the 65th Annual BetterInvesting National Convention in Chantilly, Virginia. As part of this sponsorship, Dr. Steven Tsengas, chief executive officer of OPCO, and Scott Mendes, the company’s chief financial officer, were given the opportunity to present OurPet’s Company’s corporate story to a group of 450 independent investor club representatives.

“Not every good investment opportunity is inherently right in front of you,” Dr. Tsengas stated in front of a packed audience during his May 21 presentation. “Sometimes you need to explore and search for wise investment opportunities to balance your portfolio; and if you look hard enough, you’ll find well-performing ‘gems’ like OurPet’s Company.”

To view OPCO’s full presentation from the BetterInvesting Convention, visit http://dtn.fm/C5Dja

As one of the few non-retail pure pet plays available to investors, OPCO has been successful in attracting a sizable and diverse investor base. In recent months, the company has leaned on a strong intellectual property portfolio covering roughly 75 percent of all sales to increase its presence in the growing pet industry while further expanding awareness in the investment community. OPCO’s most recent financial results reiterate this progress, as the company reported double-digit year-over-year increases in both net revenue and net income for the three months ended March 31, 2016.

“We just want to get the OurPet’s story out to the investor community,” Scott Mendes stated in this morning’s news release. “Hopefully this presentation and others will help expand our investor base, which is currently comprised of over 600 investors.”

Building on the results of a strong first quarter that included both financial growth and the introduction of the innovative Intelligent Pet Care™ product line at the Global Pet Expo, OurPet’s Company is currently preparing to make a splash in the international pet industry. In an interview with DreamTeamNetwork, Dr. Tsengas stated that OPCO has recently been placing emphasis on increasing recognition of its OurPets® and Pet Zone® brands in South Korea, China and Japan, and the products have already “gained very strong following” in the Asian nations. Tsengas went on to indicate that international sales could be “one of the big positive surprises in 2016,” despite the strength of the U.S. dollar.

OPCO currently leverages a dual-branding strategy, marketing products under the OurPets brand to pet specialty channels and products under the Pet Zone brand to food, drug and mass retail channels. The company has also found success through e-commerce channels, with sales through e-commerce giant Amazon up by 16 percent in 2015, as compared to the previous year. In total, nearly 20 percent of OPCO’s sales are categorized as internet sales.

For more information, visit the company’s website at www.ourpets.com