PRELAM'S HISTORY
In 1999 two entrepreneurs, Luc Jalbert and Don Goguen, created Prelam Enterprises, an air freshener company based in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada. It was the beginning of a real David and Goliath story. With a combined 40 years of entrepreneurial experience, the two businessmen succeeded in establishing their company with air fresheners such as Funky Monkey, Aromatherapy and Eclipse.
In 2004, on a quest for innovation, Luc approached Don with a tiny bottle of toilet odour neutralizer and asks his partner to try this product. Sceptical at first, Don follows Luc's advice and realized the product's enormous potential. Quickly, the two businessmen met and spent hours developing the product, its artwork and what marketing tactics they would use. The toilet odour eliminator Just'a Drop was born from their hard work and fierce passion.
But how could they make people talk about such a sensitive issue as foul personal odours left behind in toilets? How could a small company from the Maritimes and with only three employees ever compete with large air freshener giants, especially with something relatively unheard of on the air freshener market? Don and Luc wanted to prove to the world that it was possible for Prelam to develop its market and survive among all-powerful multi-nationals like Glade and Proctor & Gamble. From TV commercials and newspaper advertisements to guerrilla and viral marketing, the Prelam team earned a reputation for consumer-driven innovation across Canada and the world.
Just'a Drop is now sold in big box retail chains like WalMart, Loblaws and Zellers. Just'a Drop not only became Prelam's best seller in Canada, the toilet odour eliminator is also available in foreign countries such as the US, Japan, United Arab Emirates, Barbados and South Africa.
With Just'a Drop worldwide acknowledgement and sales climbing each year, Don and Luc challenged themselves once again, this time to revolutionize the Laundry Detergent Industry. Luc had the idea of putting laundry detergent in a sheet, again during one of his trips to China. The entrepreneur thought that a detergent sheet would be the ideal solution to the messy traditional liquid and powder detergents. After years of research and product development, Jalbert and Goguen drew to the conclusion that they could in fact manufacture a product that could be used by the average family. The two partners created Dizolve Group Corp. and its laundry detergent brand, Dizolve.
Dizolve Laundry Detergent Sheets were launched in WalMart Canada during the summer of 2010 and soon became a huge success. The product is now available in countries like Dubai, Abu Dahbi, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman and will soon be on the shelves of the Greek, Australian and Arab markets. After a lot of attention received from the PLMA show, set in Amsterdam during spring 2011, Luc and Don received a lot of propositions from France, Spain, Italy, United Kingdom, Denmark and the US.
The company made its debut with a small 3000 square foot installation and three employees. Since then, Prelam has seen its warehouse grow to 11 000 square feet and the number of its employees tripled with the opening of it's Hong Kong offices and the creation of a production plant based in Moncton. Prelam continues its growth as its production system is currently being automatized in order to answer to the global demand.