Retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has dealt health and beauty aids maker CCA Industries Inc. a $6 million blow -- 10 percent of its revenue -- by telling the East Rutherford company it will stop selling its teeth-whitening products.

CCA said Wednesday in a regulatory filing that Wal-Mart told the company earlier this month it will no longer carry its Plus White toothpaste and whitening kit starting in March, and that because of the slumping economy, it will sell only leading oral-care brands.

Shares of CCA plunged 54 cents, or 13 percent, to $3.60 in American Stock Exchange trading, the biggest drop since April 11, 2007.

"It is significant. We're not happy about it," said Chief Executive Officer David Edell. However, he said the loss will not result in layoffs at the 133-employee company and CCA will try to make up the deficit with its other retailers.

Sales of Plus White products sold to Wal-Mart in 2008 totaled $6 million, half of the $12 million product line and about 10 percent of the company's $60 million revenue, said Edell.

CCA is the latest vendor doing business with Wal-Mart that has seen a dramatic reduction in business with the retail goliath, known for having one of the best inventory management systems in retail. In recent years, Wal-Mart has scaled back products from Procter & Gamble Co. and Clorox Corp., among other companies, as the world's biggest retailer tried to trim costs.

CCA began making its teeth-whitening products in the 1980s and started selling the items to Wal-Mart later that decade.

The toothpaste sells between $4 and $6 a tube and the kit between $8 and $10 at supermarket chains such as Pathmark and Stop & Shop and drugstore chains such as Walgreen Co. and CVS Caremark Corp.

Wal-Mart will continue selling CCA's bikini area skin cream, nail cream, diet products and perfume, said Edell. Wal-Mart did not respond to calls seeking comment.

CCA has dealt with blows before, said Edell, citing the consumer hair style shift to straight hair from curly hair that "clobbered" sales of its curl-enhancing shampoo, which debuted in the 1990s. CCA rebounded by introducing two products that made up the difference, said Edell.

To bounce back from the latest setback, CCA plans something similar. The company is coming out this year with two new and undisclosed brands -- not in the oral care product line that Plus White is in -- that Edell believes will pick up that volume. He said the company can get new products out to market in 60 to 90 days once the formulation is set and sometime onto retail shelves shortly after.

"Being small, we can move faster," he said. "We have been very experienced and capable of picking up loss volumes."

In October 2007, Forbes magazine cited CCA as 143 out of 200 in a list of America's best small companies.

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CCA Industries Inc.

Location: East Rutherford

Business: maker of health and beauty aids and cosmetics

Web site: ccaindustries.com

2008 revenue: $60 million

Employees: 133, about 40 part time

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E-mail: fletcher@northjersey.com

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