Zep reported its fiscal 2009 sales this week (down 12%). The manufacturer of industrial cleaning products has been expanding via industrial distribution channels in the past year. Here’s what it had to say in a conference call about that initiative:

 

"We made noteworthy progress during the year in working towards entering the industrial distribution market as we partnered with six world class distributors and signed agreements with 70 local and regional distributors to market our Zep Professional product line during 2009. While we remain very enthusiastic and optimistic about the long term prospects of this initiative sales to some distributors have ramped up more slowly as some of our partners are only willing to add inventory at a particular rate given the current economy. Strategies are currently underway to continuously improve our customer reach in this market."