Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Hargell Limited-largest distributor of ethnic products in canada.We specialise in:

Hargell Limited

Hargell limited is the largest distributor of ethnic products in canada.We specialise in:
Accessories for hair.
Braids (hair extentions)
Hair products
Etc.

Member Info »

Business Type:	Service Provider, Government Institution
Number of Employees:	5 ~ 50
Business Scope:	Apparel & Accessories, Arts & Crafts, Health & Medicine, Textile
Member Since:	2004
Last Sign In Date:	Jul 04, 2011

Contact Details

Fax Number:
Company Name:	Hargell Limited
Company Address:	50 Don River Blvd. , Toronto, Ontario, Canada
City/Town:	Toronto
Province/State:	Ontario
Country/Region:	Canada
Zip/Postal Code:	M2N2M9
Phone Number:	Please sign in to view contact details
Mobile:
Contact Person (Department):	Mr. Harvey Gellman

'You have to give back'

Harvey and Linda Gellman have been making a difference in the black community for decades

Co-founders of Hargell Limited, a successful line of ethnic beauty products, Linda also helped the Order achieve its goal of shipping $1 million worth of donated medical supplies annually to hospitals across Canada and around the world, by encouraging the retail outlets that carried their products to make donations as well.

Harvey is a man of few words when it comes to taking credit for anything. When I asked to interview him for this article, his response, as usual, was "talk to Linda."

He was instrumental in linking up the Sun with black community leaders like Arnold Auguste, publisher of Toronto's Share newspaper years ago, when tensions between the Sun and the black community over our crime coverage were running high.

Which isn't to say there aren't disagreements today. But things are a lot better.

Besides, I know what motivates Harvey because we've talked about it.

Growing up in New York, he saw first-hand what happened when race relations between blacks and whites collapsed, and the social damage it caused. And he vowed then to do whatever he could in his adopted home of Toronto to prevent a repeat of it.

Harvey and Linda, who's originally from Vancouver, met in Toronto. Harvey was the first man she ever spoke to here when he met her at the airport (they both knew Linda's sister) and soon after he set her up on a blind date. But when the guy turned up at her door drunk, Harvey gallantly stepped in and one thing led to another.

Following their marriage, the Gellmans put in years of seven-day weeks building up Hargell.

"I did the books, Harvey was sales," says Linda, and when they went looking for a charity they could work with, Auguste put them in touch with Seivright.

"The black community was buying our products," says Linda. "You can't take that for granted. You have to give back."

BIBLICAL ADVICE IS TRUE

The Gellmans recently received an award from the Jamaican government for their charitable work, and, as it turns out, the biblical advice that if you cast your bread on the waters, it will come back to you 10-fold, is true. This year, the winner of their very first medical scholarship -- Dr. Marcia Graham -- will be Saturday night's guest speaker.

But the Gellmans aren't done yet. Last year, grandparents four times over, they adopted a baby boy.

To purchase tickets for Saturday's fundraising dinner ($60 each) at The Shriners Auditorium, 3100 Keele St., 6:30 p.m., and/or to make a tax-deductible donation, contact Lloyd Seivright, Independent United Order of Solomon Trust Association, 2420 Coppersmith Court, Mississauga, Ont., L5L 3B5, phone 905-828-5128.

Hargell Ltd.

108-5050 dufferin st (Map It)
North york, Ontario
M3H5T5

Tel: (416) 661-6415
Fax: (416) 661-6417

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Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Irish products-Seventeen Irish consumer products companies - BUSINESS LEADERSHIP MAGAZINE

http://businessandleadership.com/

US retail giants visit Dublin showcase of Irish products

Seventeen Irish consumer products companies are gaining exposure to US retail chains with 11,000 stores and sales valued at $182bn a year between them at an event in Dublin today.

Enterprise Ireland has invited the delegation, which includes the presidents and vice presidents of major US retail chains Walgreens/Duane Reade, Ahold, HEB and Kroger.
The products on show include food and beverages, baby care, household, healthcare and tourism products as well as Nualight’s innovative retail lighting products.
The visit represents tremendous potential for Irish companies to break into the top retail chains in the US and significantly boost their international sales, according to Enterprise Ireland.

The Irish companies

Auld Sod creates distinctive, hand-crafted Irish sourced products that evoke an emotional connection to the earth and the soil itself. The company produces and markets its Irish soil under its official Irish Dirt brand.

Flahavan’s is the largest oat miller in Ireland and is Ireland’s leading producer of top quality oat based products for the retail, wholesale and export sectors. The company has listings in all the major multiples in Northern Ireland and in Tesco ASDA, Waitrose and others selling into the UK since 2003.

Founded by working mums Martina Delaney and Suzanne Browne in 2003, Clevamama manufactures innovative baby care products designed to make the experience of caring for infants and young children easier, safer and healthier.

Irish Breeze is Ireland’s only manufacturer of cotton wool. Products include Irish Breeze cotton wool, Irish Breeze soaps and a new range of baby care products under the brand name ‘Babykind’.

J Donohoe Beverages manufacture and bottle beverages for over 135 years including West Coast Cooler. In 2010 the Group established a new nutrition business that currently manufactures a range of functional sports and lifestyle beverages.

The Jelly Bean Factory manufactures an extensive range of gourmet jelly beans and sell to a global market both branded and private label products. Exports account for over 96% of total turnover with major markets in the UK, Western Europe, Canada and US and The Middle East

John Hinde Ireland specialises in personalised and unique product concepts for the high street retail, toy, gift and tourist destinations, together with custom and private label products. Established in 1956 it has been at the forefront of developing and promoting Irish tourism for 5 decades. The company has established operations in both the UK and USA.

Established in 2002 by the Queally Group, Kilkenny Nutritional Beverages is a manufacturer of functional drinks – infant juices, sports nutrition drinks and pharmaceutical based products.
Lily O’Briens — one of Ireland’s best loved chocolatiers.

LLR-G5 manufacturers Organic Silicon G5, a form of supplemental silicon to aid the immune system and connective tissue, cardiovascular and brain health. G5 is distributed all over the world from Castlebar, Co Mayo.

Nualight is the only LED lighting company in the world that specialises exclusively in accent lighting for food retail displays. Nualight partners with the world’s leading retailers to create more profitable and sustainable food displays.

Oglesby & Butler produces butane-powered tools that are used the world over under the Portasol brand name. In 2008, its technology expanded into the vaporiser market IOLITE portable vaporizer. Products are designed and manufactured at the manufacturing plant in Carlow.

Ovelle in Dundalk produces its own skincare ranges in fully integrated research and manufacturing facility where scientists work to combine advances in skincare with Ovelle’s long tradition in dermatology.

Punch Industries manufactures specialist cleaning and protecting products for shoes, clothing and household surfaces. It has 3 major product categories, comprising of some 36 brands and 1,500 individual product lines covering shoe care, fabric care and home care including Colour Catcher and Keep it White products.

Slendertone products are designed, manufactured and marketed by BMR (Bio Medical Research), an international company headquartered in Galway. Slendertone is a world leader in products that improve muscle tone and body shape and has sold over 5.2 million toning belts worldwide.

Standard Brands (ZIP) produces domestic fire products, including firelighters, firelogs, BBQ fuels and ancillary products. The products are marketed under the brand names ZIP, Sunny Jim and Drummer as well as private label brands.

Healthcare company Lifes2good markets and distributes a range of natural health, beauty and lifestyle products through both direct marketing and retail channels. Product categories include skincare, thinning hair, pain relief and weight management

Has anyone read the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Report? It illustrates the health of entrepreneurial start ups in the country. It has a lot of facts. It throws up a lot of questions.
2,200 people set up a new business each month last year. How many were made redundant or worked for companies that went bust?
Almost three quarters are expected to become employers. When the kids are 18 they can be employed for tax efficient purposes? Are they then employees?
Most are working in the high tech sector. This is the sector that traditionally hires ‘self employed’ contractors. But they’re not really businesses, are they?
It said while the majority of the businesses will remain small, the employment impact of the enterprises is significant when taken together. Surely, most are not ‘real companies’ and if they are, they’re likely to be ‘characteristically’ Irish SMEs ie they stay small!

Splash incorporated personal care products

The personal care products maker has pushed on with its foray into the food business by buying processor Moondish Foods Corp. -- moondishfoods.com

Splash was incorporated in 1991 to engage in the development and manufacture of skin whitening, skin exfoliants, hair care, and food supplement products, among others, according to information posted on the Philippine Stock Exchange’s Web site.
For 2012, the company has earmarked P520 million for capital expenditures, 22% more than the P426 million allotted last year, primarily to expand the firm’s production capacity and efficiency improvements.
This amount is expected to be bankrolled by proceeds of a P1.12-billion corporate notes issue last December.
At present, the firm -- a subsidiary of Ang-Hortaleza Corp. -- maintains presence for its personal care products in about 50 countries through distributors, according to its 2011 annual report.

Hindustan Unilever

Lotus Herbals eyeing Pakistan for its products

%20%28At%20present%2C%20Lotus%20Herbals%27s%20biggest%20export%20market%20remains%20the%20US%2C%20where%20it%20markets%20its%20skin%20care%20products.%29

NEW DELHI: India Herbal skincare products maker Lotus Herbals is looking to enter the Pakistani market as part of its international market expansion strategy.
The company, which gets 25 per cent of its revenues from exports, is bullish on the Pakistani market as the neighbouring country's population has skin type similar to that of Indians.

"Our exports are going to increase with time. We are present in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. We are also looking at Pakistan as a key market as they have similar skin types," Lotus Herbals Ltd Director Nitin Passi said.
At present, the company's biggest export market remains the US, where it markets its skin care products.
Apart from neighbouring countries, the company exports its products to various global markets, including Germany, South Africa and Malaysia.
When asked about the company's sales growth in the current financial year, Passi said: "We have been growing at 35 per cent year on year and would like to maintain this rate in the current year."
The company, which sells various skin care, cosmetics and hair care products, registered a turnover of Rs 175 crore for the fiscal ended March 31, 2012.
Passi said company expects growth to be driven equally by the all the verticals, including skin care, hair care, make up and professional product range.
In domestic market, the company is looking to strengthen its distribution network for both make up and professional range in the next one year.
"We are targeting close to 200 outlets for our make-up range in the next three months. We are also eying up to 13,000 salons for our professional range products in the next twelve months," he said.
The company's professional products range is used by nearly 6,500 beauty salons and spas across the country at present, Passi added.
Lotus Herbals, which has two manufacturing plants in Baddi (Himachal Pradesh), recently launched a premium make up range--PureStay in the domestic market.

Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL),-GCPL acquires Darling Group`s hair extensions biz

Godrej Consumer Products (GCPL), one of the leading FMCG players, announced Tuesday it has entered into an agreement for exclusive rights to include the hair extensions business in Kenya and exports to other East Africa geographies in its partnership with the Darling Group.

September 23, 2012:

Indian fast-moving consumer goods companies are having a whale of a time, with consumers turning relatively impervious to price hikes in products.

Godrej Consumer Products is not only wooing the Indian consumer, but has also set its sights on consumers in other developing economies.

Global businesses accounted for 38 per cent of Godrej’s total revenues in 2011-12, up from the 32 per cent the year before.

In terms of net profits, overseas businesses account for about 20 per cent.

The company’s annual report details the multiple benefits of its latest — and largest — African acquisition, its expanding presence in the Latin American market and what its global business brings to the table.

Marking global presence

GCPL already operates in Indonesia, Argentina, Africa and Europe through acquisitions of leading companies in those regions.

It sharpened its focus on the global market in 2011-12 and consolidated its global presence.

First, it acquired a majority stake in the Darling group, a market leader in hair extension products.

Then it ventured into Chilean territory through stake acquisitions in Cosmetica Nacional, a hair colour and cosmetics company.

GCPL has stuck to its strategy of acquiring companies in verticals where it already operates in the domestic market — hair-care, household care and personal care.

Integrating acquisitions

Darling’s production facilities blend well with GCPL’s earlier acquisition of Kinky, another hair-care group based in South Africa.

GCPL will integrate the two production facilities to bring down costs for Kinky.

Meanwhile, Darling’s hair extension products will use Kinky’s customer and outlet base to grow sales.

Similarly, the Cosmetica Nacional acquisition exports to seven countries in Latin America, besides having a presence in Panama and Costa Rica.

This adds to GCPL’s market in other southern regions such as Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, and so on.

GCPL has also introduced the domestic Renew range of hair colours in the African market, helping it widen its presence in ethnic hair colour markets.

In its annual report, GCPL also highlighted some of the more original innovations it has initiated in overseas markets.

In Indonesia, for example, the company introduced a paper format mosquito repellent besides a dual-fragrance air freshener.

Keywords: Cosmetica Nacional acquisition, majority stake in the Darling group, Darling’s hair extension products, Kinky, dual-fragrance air freshener from Godrej, mosquito repellent, Godrej revenues

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Solar Energy Illuminates Darkest Parts of Africa

August 24, 2012

This is Part One of a five-part series on Renewable Energy for Africa

Countries across Africa are enduring power generation crises, and others will in the near future. To avoid them, some are investing billions of dollars in new coal-fired power plants that harm the environment, potentially dangerous nuclear energy projects and huge hydroelectric schemes that cut people off from water sources.

Environmentalists and clean power proponents argue that the money would be far better spent on much smaller, but ultimately further reaching, renewable energy ventures concentrated at village and town level.

A pioneer in solar energy, Bob Freling, said big, conventional power projects often benefit only urban populations, while hundreds of millions of rural Africans continue to languish in poverty caused largely by a lack of electricity.

For almost 20 years, as director of the Washington DC-based Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) NGO, Freling has helped provide access to clean, sustainable solar energy to more than a million people in 20 developing countries.

He’s known internationally as “The man who wants to light up Africa” because of his conviction that access to electricity is a basic human right, not a privilege. Freling advises world leaders and the United Nations on development through solar power.

In 2008, Queen Noor of Jordan presented him with the King Hussein Leadership Prize in honor of his efforts to promote sustainable development, human rights, equity and peace.

The energy gap

In an interview with VOA, Freling said, “It makes me sad when I look at that satellite image of earth at night and see Africa still essentially in the dark. The fact that so much of Africa is still without electricity is a huge psychological burden for the continent. It’s also a physical burden counting against Africa’s progress.”

He maintained that lack of power leads to poor quality of life, children having no futures and to disease and death. “It prevents kids from reading and studying at night. It forces families to breathe in the carcinogenic fumes of kerosene lanterns and to suffer from the fires that are caused by kerosene lamps falling down or exploding – fires that maim and kill literally thousands of people every year.”

Without electricity, Freling explained, many Africans can’t earn money. “In terms of their economic lives, their productive day is done as soon as the sun goes down. There’s very little they can do to help grow their economy when there’s no access to power,” he said.

Without power, they can’t pump clean water, forcing them to trudge long and dangerous distances in search of water and wood for the fires needed to purify it. To do these basic chores of survival, many African children are forced to drop out of school.

“Without energy, these folks will not be able to experience significant improvements in their health and education. When you get right down to it, energy is the foundation for life,” Freling said.

Photovoltaic revolution

Freling’s NGO electrifies rural areas with what he called “stand-alone photovoltaic systems.” Arrays of solar panels use cells known as photovoltaics to convert sunlight into electrical current. A battery stores the electricity and, when discharged, powers lights and other appliances. The batteries are large enough to provide several days of electricity if overcast weather prevents recharging.

“It’s one of the most gratifying parts of my job – the reactions of people who are able to flip a switch and have electric light come on for the first time. It’s a very profound experience, for them as well as for me,” Freling said. “It’s amazing to see a whole previously unknown world of opportunity suddenly open up to them, with just one light bulb coming on. To see peoples’ faces, the sheer joy on them, when they realize that they will now be able to read at night, is indescribable.”

The SELF NGO has used microfinance arrangements to enable individual families to pay for their electricity units. A photovoltaic energy system designed for home use usually costs between $550 and $650.
Freling explained, “In the long run these solar systems work out much cheaper than people having to buy kerosene and candles every week their whole lives, and they’re safe and environmentally friendly…. Families have usually paid for them within two to three years.”

SELF initially focused on electrifying individual homes. But, in the early 2000s, Freling decided to “go bigger.”

“As much as I believe in bringing light to a family, I recognized that the technology we were using had potential way beyond household lighting, because the same solar panel that is used to light up a house can be used to pump water, or power a health clinic or a school.”

So in recent years SELF has concentrated on powering entire villages across Africa – revolutionizing life for many thousands of people.

Northern Nigerian example

The NGO’s flagship “whole village” project is in northern Nigeria. The country’s vast oil wealth hasn’t benefited the region’s inhabitants. Most don’t have electricity. They live in mud and thatch homes and survive by growing crops among desert grasslands. They cook over wood fires; kerosene lamps provide light; and clean water sources are far away.

But SELF’s solar technology has transformed the lives of 7,500 people in northern Nigeria. “We electrified three villages in the northern state of Jigawa and in each of the villages provided power for a number of homes, a school, a health clinic, a mosque, water pumping systems, street lighting, and even a microenterprise center that would power a number of small businesses in the village,” Freling explained.

Businesses selling food have sprung up under streetlights, and people are earning money for the first time in their lives. Illiterate adults are learning to read and write at night classes. Children have access to computers – a previously unattainable but vital part of modern education.

As in other countries, like Burundi, Lesotho, Malawi and Rwanda, the photovoltaic solar energy provided by SELF has for the first time electrified clinics. In Jigawa, doctors are now able to treat patients at night, and vaccines can be refrigerated – allowing more children to be vaccinated against potentially fatal sicknesses and facilitating round-the-clock treatment of people with serious diseases such as HIV, malaria and cholera.

African creativity

Something happened in one of the Nigerian villages that Freling said illustrated the “supreme ingenuity” of Africans that he’s come to respect over the years.

At Wawan-rafi, farmers irrigate their crops with water from a river. Traditionally they’ve watered their fields using hollow gourds – a very slow and labor intensive process that limited production severely.

“It was one of the villagers who came up with the idea of putting an array of solar panels on the back of a cow. The villagers wanted something that was portable,” said Freling.

So, in cooperation with the people of Wawan-rafi, SELF designed a cattle cart equipped with fold-out solar modules of extreme strength that could power a water pump and be moved from field to field. It allows farmers to irrigate their crops efficiently and grow much more food than ever before.

Freling said, “We want to work with the community to come up with solutions that meet their needs. They’re very intelligent; they’ve very creative people. You give them half a chance and I can assure you they will come up with very innovative solutions. They just need a little bit of help.”

He maintained that access to electricity that allows development fosters peace, especially in areas prone to religious and political extremism, such as northern Nigeria.

“When you have people who are deprived of basic opportunities in life, they become disenfranchised. Often, those vacuums can be filled by people promising certain things. The more you can provide a better life for people in developing countries, the better chance we have of preventing them from being attracted to extremist organizations [like al-Qaeda affiliated Boko Haram in Nigeria],” said Freling. “I think that one of the greatest antidotes to this kind of terrorism is to make life better for people.”

Unique irrigation in Benin

In the Kalalé district of northern Benin, more than 100,000 people live in 44 villages. Before SELF entered the area, none of the inhabitants had electricity. There are also no schools or hospitals there. But the villagers’ main concern is chronic food shortages.

Kalalé borders the arid Sahel region and has a very long dry season. Freling recalled his first visit to the district in 2007. “Essentially no food was grown; diets were very restricted; malnutrition was widespread. You’d often see these kids with the distended belly, a telltale sign of kwashiorkor, a form of malnutrition.”

SELF implemented a groundbreaking method to end food insecurity in the area. “We combined solar water pumping with drip irrigation, allowing farmers to grow food year round,” said Freling.

Drip irrigation systems use gravity to draw water from reservoirs through pipes. But power is needed to pump water to the reservoirs. Usually, the power is provided by diesel engines, but Freling wanted the system in Benin to be environmentally “clean” and energized by the sun.

SELF’s “Solar Market Garden” prototype was successful. A solar pump now draws water from a stream that flows constantly to fill an irrigation dam in the Bessassi area. At Dunkassa village, water is pumped from the ground.

Freling described the project as a remarkable success. “You go back and you see these fields filled with leafy green vegetables…. What I noticed the first time I went back was how the women had physically filled out. You could visibly see a difference in the health of the people in the village. They were eating well.”

Three Solar Market Gardens enabled the villages of Bessassi and Dunkassa to produce almost two tons of fresh produce every month. “For the first time in their lives, they weren’t hungry. On top of that, they were making money. I would say about 20 percent of the produce was being consumed by the [local] families, the rest was being sold to market,” said Freling.

As well as feeding them, the electricity that allowed the villagers to irrigate their crops opened up the world of business to them. Suddenly, said Freling, they could afford clothes for themselves and their children and medicines without which death rates had previously spiked.

Costs and training

According to Freling, a Solar Market Garden - sometimes including photovoltaic power systems - managed by a village collective typically costs about $25,000. “That sounds like a lot but they pay for themselves within a few years [through profits made from having access to power],” he said. “We’ve been able to demonstrate in many places in Africa how much cheaper it is to provide electricity with solar power rather than traditional diesel generators.”

Freling explained that while the upfront cost of a generator is low, its operating and maintenance costs are high, with spare parts being expensive and rare in many parts of Africa. He added that diesel fuel is often not available in isolated regions of the continent.

He continued, “With photovoltaics, the upfront cost is higher but there are no fuel costs and much less maintenance costs. So over time you’ll spend a lot less money on these solar systems.”

SELF ensures that communities have thorough knowledge of the solar energy systems they use. Its experts help locals design, install and maintain the technology. Freling said they’ve trained many Africans as solar technicians.

“We’ve had great luck in finding people – in some cases with no more than a fourth, fifth grade education – but they’re smart, they’re intuitive, they’re good with their hands and they become great solar technicians. We’re very proud of some of the folks that we’ve been able to train in Africa to become solar champions in their own right,” he said.

MDGs to fail without electricity

Freling and his organization have done plenty to bring electricity to Africa. But he said the many millions of Africans who continue to “decay in the dark” now need help from figures far more powerful than he.

“I am very, very impatient for the continent to make a commitment to bring in modern clean energy services to the people. It’s within our power now. But a lot depends on the political will of African leaders. That will be the most important determining factor in whether or not African populations have access to energy,” he said.

Freling called for a new level of commitment from African leaders, for them to “embrace the idea of universal energy access” and to recognize that having electricity is a basic human right.

He urged the leaders to make the political commitments necessary to put in place the regulatory, legal and financial environments needed for the private sector, civil society and local governments “to cooperate towards creative solutions that will enable people to have access to clean energy services.”

Without the large-scale “green” electrification of the developing world, Freling warned, each of the U.N.’s eight Millennium Development Goals – including the end of poverty, hunger, widespread death from disease and lack of education – will fail.

http://www.voanews.com/content/solar-energy-illuminates-darkest-parts-of-africa/1495451.html

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The Solar Energy Phones - Kenya Safaricom

Access to mobile phone in rural Kenya was recently made cheaper and more attractive for the low-income peasants. Safaricom Company has introduced solar-powered mobile phones that not only cost little money but also put an end to long journeys and waiting time for electrical charging.

An average electricity-powered phone costs around Ksh 2,500 but the newly introduced, solar-powered ones cost only around Ksh 2,000. Moreover, instead of paying Ksh20 every two or three days to charge the battery, the owner of the solar phone will make no extra expenses on the phone. Also, they are reachable in the night, as they no longer have to switch their phones off to spare energy.

Safaricom introduced these phones barely two years after the introduction of the mobile banking system known as Mpesa. This made money transactions even easier and instant, as they take place outside the traditional, bureaucratic banking system.

Monday 11 January 2010