Lancaster Colony Corp. recently reported record high net sales for the first fiscal quarter ended September 30, 2002, of $276 million, up 4% from $265 million in the first quarter last year. Net income reached $20,556,000, level with the $20,341,000 reported a year ago. "We were pleased that volume increases in our Specialty Foods and Automotive segments drove consolidated sales to new record highs in this unsettled economy," said John B. Gerlach, Jr., chairman and CEO. "Operating income benefited from our Automotive segment's continued improvement, which offset the impact of a decline in Glassware and Candles sales. Changes in the Specialty Foods product mix were among the factors hampering the otherwise strong performance of our largest segment. Today we are announcing a difficult decision that has become absolutely necessary given the increasingly challenging consumer glassware market. Over the next several months, glass manufacturing operations at our Indiana Glass Company plant in Dunkirk, In., will be consolidated into our Sapulpa, Okla., facility. The Sapulpa plant will gain pressed glassware manufacturing in addition to its blown glassware capabilities, while substantial warehousing and distribution operations will remain in Dunkirk."

A webcast of the company's November 1 first quarter conference call will be archived at http://www.lancastercolony.com through November 15.