Third-quarter sales grow for KonaRed

KonaRed Corp., a young local company making beverages with Hawaii coffee cherry fruit, said its momentum is headed in the right direction as sales continued growing in the third quarter. Yet the company’s net loss and stock price suffered.

Kauai-based KonaRed issued its earnings report Tuesday for the three months ended Sept. 30, and said sales nearly doubled to $341,264 from $174,581 in the same period last year.

The company also had dramatically higher expenses related to expanding distribution and sales that helped produce a net loss of $752,485 that was more than double the year-earlier loss of $257,480.

KonaRed, which has been selling products for about three years and became a company with publicly traded stock last year, said it has expanded its product reach into an additional 5,000 U.S. stores since April, including 175 Ralphs grocery stores in September.

A lot of marketing expense has gone into the retail roll-out through in-store product demonstrations, KonaRed said in a quarterly report with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

To fund recent growth, KonaRed has sold 3.7 million shares of stock for $1.7 million over the last nine months.

KonaRed stock closed Tuesday at about 24 cents a share, which was a 52-week low and compares with a high of $1.24 in January.

European Union cuts growth forecasts

BRUSSELS » The European Union cut its already low economic growth forecasts further Tuesday, indicating the recovery will remain sluggish amid problems for the bigger countries, particularly France and Germany.

The official forecast for growth this year in the 18-country eurozone was cut to 0.8 percent from a prediction of 1.2 percent made in the spring. Indicating little good was expected next year, too, it reduced the 2015 prediction to 1.1 percent from 1.7 percent.

Unemployment in the currency union was forecast to decrease at a painfully slow rate — after 11.6 percent this year, it is expected to dip to 11.3 percent next year and 10.8 percent in 2016.

U.S. factory orders slip in September

WASHINGTON » Orders to U.S. factories declined in September, dragged by falling demand in the volatile aircraft category.

The Commerce Department said Tuesday that orders retreated 0.6 percent in September, after having plunged 10 percent in August, also due largely to plummeting demand for aircraft.

There are usually dramatic monthly swings in demand for aircraft, which before falling in September and August had soared by 315.6 percent in July. Excluding the volatile transportation sector, factory orders have been flat for the past two months.

Ford recalls covers 202,000 vehicles

DETROIT » Ford is recalling more than 202,000 cars, vans and trucks in North America in five separate recalls to fix gas leaks, air bag sensors, stalling and other issues.

The company said the problems have caused one accident, but it’s not aware of injuries in any of the cases.

The biggest of the recalls announced Tuesday affects about 135,000 F-150 pickups and Ford Flex family haulers from the 2014 model year. Faulty passenger seat weight sensors can stop air bags from inflating in crashes. Dealers will widen a gap between the seat frame and track and then recalibrate the sensors.

Also covered are some 2009-through-2014 F-150s that were serviced for seat track problems this year.

ON THE MOVE

East West Center has announced that Nicholas Manring, a 20 year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service, is the new diplomat-in-residence. He will be posted at the center until June 2015. He was previously the chief of consular services and deputy principal officer at the U.S. Consulate General in Chennai, India.

ABC Stores has announced the following promotions:

» Khang Dang to store manager of store No. 68 at 2255 Kuhio Ave. He was previously an associate store manager, an assistant store manager, a shift manager and a sales associate at ABC Stores.

» Chauntelle Murrin to store manager of store No. 15-A at Ala Moana Center. She was previously an associate store manager, an assistant store manager and a management trainee for ABC Stores.

» Albert Pagala to store manager of store No. 76 at 2552 Kala­kaua Ave. He was previously an associate store manager, an assistant store manager and a sales associate of ABC Stores.