The company uses beeswax to make products such as lip balm and lotion.

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) – After years of selling its products wholesale to other retailers, Burt’s Bees will open its own store next year at its Durham headquarters.

The company – which uses natural ingredients like beeswax to make personal care products such as lip balm, lotion and makeup – plans to build a new showroom and storefront in available space in its 136,000-square-foot headquarters and manufacturing facility, Chief Financial Officer Ken Troshinsky said.

The company expects most of the store’s customers to come from tours of its production floor, he said. “This gives them the opportunity to touch, smell, feel … and buy,” Troshinsky said. He expects the store and showroom to open early in 2004.

The company also will expand its production floor, shipping department and warehouse, Troshinsky said.

Burt’s Bees, which employs about 180 workers, had 2002 sales of $43.5 million.

The company was founded in 1984 by Maine resident Roxanne Quimby, who built the business from craft markets in Maine to a multimillion-dollar cosmetics company.

The company moved operations to North Carolina in 1994.

AP-ES-07-02-03 1123EDT