Moore Medical Selling More to the Slammer

New Britain, CT-based Moore Medical Corp. is headed for the big house, at least, its catalogs are. The $137.8 million medical, dental, and veterinary products cataloger is stepping up its penetration into the corrections marketplace.

Moore Medical, which has been targeting correctional facilities with a separate title since 1999, last week inked a new multiyear agreement with the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), one of the country’s largest providers of detention and corrections services to the government. Under the new deal, which extends the companies’ two-year-old agreement, and runs through 2007, the cataloger will continue to provide support and procurement services to the 59 facilities owned and managed by the CCA.

Moore Medical also has an agreement with Pelham, AL-based Southern Health Partners to provide supplies for inmates in 28 correctional facilities nationwide. According to Moore Medical CEO Linda Autore, the corrections market “is probably the single biggest area of growth for us.” Moore Medical’s corrections catalog has increased from 16 pages in 1999 to 32 pages through 2002 to the present 48-page book.

The catalog, which sells such basic health products as aspirin to complex diagnostic equipment for the facility’s healthcare department, typically mails to purchasing agents at the correctional facility. One of the challenges in marketing to a captive audience is the merchandise packaging, Autore says. “We must be careful that nothing can made into a weapon, even down to the foil we use on certain products.”