6,000 miles London to Capetown- to have a baby… November 26, 2007
Posted by Chris in : Sales , add a comment
We came to Cape Town on the 18th August 2007 to set up Township Trades (TT) in South Africa and to have a baby. Both are progressing well but neither is fully toilet trained.
On 7th November 2007 at 17.57pm we received a beautiful baby boy called Jocelyn Konrad (both family names).
Mother and son have since done very well and are getting some sleep.
ps Jocelyn seems to like soap as far as we can tell!
pps We have been trying to read the future from his nappy ! (just think tealeafs)
Seeking Sunflowers November 13, 2007
Posted by Melinda in : Sales , add a commentSunflower oil is brilliant in liquid soap, it has moisturising qualities and lots of vitamins that are great for the skin. It is relatively cheap when you compare it to olive oil, the traditional alternative, and for these reasons, I want to use it in our Township Trade’s soap.Â
I was delighted to discover that Sunflowers are the largest oil crop grown in South Africa - they produce around 330,000t annually but South Africans consume around 23kgs of sunflower oil per capita which means they need to import a further 770,000t of the stuff annually. Trying to buy the home grown oil in SA is proving to be a nightmare. Prices have risen from 9R a kilo t0 38R a kilo and yet this morning my friend Alin (who is setting up a soap factory in Rumania) said he could get me Rumanian Sunflower oil for less than 1 US dollar a kilo.Â
The only conclusion I can draw is that South Africans, along with the french, eat far too many chips. Rumanians, on the other hand, must prefer dumplings.
Challenged - Who me ? November 8, 2007
Posted by Melinda in : Production issues , 1 comment so farWhen Chris Shaw and his lovely wife Jane arrived at my farmhouse in France I knew I was back on the rollercoaster. Here was a bloke with an unshakeable dream to open a soapmaking factory in Africa. The kind of help he was seeking was right up my street, the opportunity to build a soapmaking enterprise in Africa that would have the quality and style to compete in a world market.
BRIEFLY
There was much to be done: I was to be involved in sourcing equipment, formulating recipes, writing job descriptions, hands-on training and I would also contribute to sales efforts and fundraising.
After a quick consultation with my poodles, I said yes.Â
DISTANCE LEARNING
In theory, this project had my name written all over it. There was nothing in the brief that I hadn’t done before but in the past I had had the distinct advantage of actually being in the same country as the project, at least during the setting up process. In the Township Trades scenario I would be working in France, Chris would be in England and Agnes working alone in South Africa. It would make things harder but Chris’s determination and the amazing win/win concept at the heart of Township Trades left me in no doubt at all that we would succeed…..I just wasn’t quite sure how.
WHERE ?
 Finding the factory was down to Agnes and Chris and I stayed well away from the nightmare of legalities and admin problems they had to deal with, thank you very much. From my point of view it needed to be big enough to house at least 20 people and to have enough mod cons to ensure they wouldn’t fall over each other whilst skating on the soap. It also had to be equipped to a standard that would enable us to make soap products that would meet the demanding standards of EU cosmetic legislation and, believe me, I can be a real stickler here.  After months of searching they found the miracle palace in Blackheath that is now TOWNSHIP TRADES VERY OWN MODERN FACTORY….HOORAY!
THE INSIDES
We had a huge, lucky break when all the equipment from my former factory in Wales became available and the question of sales and at least some funding fell neatly into place  when, in an old address book (you would be amazed how many people I called who have got old and died or who didn’t remember me!!)…..I re-discovered an alive and kicking, ecologically friendly, Adam Brett whom I had worked with before on a similar project in Tanzania. I met him in Green Park, outlined the project and watched his socially conscious, entrepreneurial eyes light up like baleesha beacons 
Adam was on board.
WHAT’S IN A SOAP?Â
Sourcing ingredients has probably been the biggest issue for me to date. We wanted, natural, home grown, plant oils - how hard could they be to find in a country like South Africa renowned for botanical brilliance? The sad fact is that our mad, global economy takes great pleasure in exporting oils to the countries where they will reach the highest price and importing cheaper versions for home use. The home grown oils in South Africa command enormous price premiums within South Africa and in some cases I found myself faced with the option of buying cheaper from international companies who had bought the oils from SA, packed them elsewhere and were offering to ship them back to me at double the price.. so creating the perfect example of a carbon Yeti footprint.
Dealing direct with SA companies I also found some amazing price variations. In a hunt for melon oil (I lurrrrve melon oil in my soap !) I found price differences from company to company could vary up to 800%. The internet (Oh thank God for you my friend), came up with numerous helpful sourcing agencies where I posted requests for South African companies and received replies from Chinamen asking if they wouldn’t do instead. In my search to buy the right ingredients at the right prices I have to date contacted over forty companies.
Then another stroke of luck in the shape of Salmi, a hugely enterprising woman who founded a co-operative in Namibia farming melons. If I have done it right you should find a link to her somewhere near this post. So thats the melon oil sorted then ! http://spore.cta.int/spore118/spore118_view.asp
After three months of detailed research I found that prices quoted in July had trebled by October due to the wrong kind of rain. Well, I guess these are plants we are talking about but this story continues.
WHAT’S COOKING
Formulation has also been fun but greatly helped with technical assistance from Steve Hughes at Inovia International in the UK- another company who have seen me through many trying times. Bar soaps are no problem at all (I shall have you know one UK national newspaper refers to me as ‘The Delia Smith of Soapmaking’) and we shall undoubtedly make the most magnificent bar soaps in the world using some fab herbal extracts and gorgeous moisturising oils…..but don’t start me on that one…I’ve already written two books about it. Our challenge was natural liquid soaps which behave very differently when you exclude all the normal industrial nasties like SLS. After much help from Steve and also from the international soapmaking community and particularly, posts on a soap board from a wonderfully knowledgable bloke from the US called Steve Mushynsky. The result, I’m pleased to say is a superb, 100% natural, rich foaming soap that I am EXTREMELY proud of and that has the seal of approval from at least three of my grandchildren and the poodles…..not to mention some very important buyers Only the cats remain unimpressed but they prefer tongues anyway.
BACK TO BASE
So, back in SA, Agnes has virtually collapsed under the strain and then suddenly an angel presents Chris with Lucian and Bev, two soaperhuman, highly qualified beings who just seem to want to help. I met them over dinner at Chris and Jane’s and within just a few weeks, the nutters had moved themselves over to Cape Town and taken control of everything on the ground from unloading and fitting all the equipment to most importantly finding the people who would man the project on an ongoing basis. This is even more insane when you consider that Bev is about to drop her first baby - like this week ???. (guess what! Bev gave birth as I was writing this Blog. Lucian forgot to tell us what sort of baby it was but what I want to know is when will it be reporting for work) I am sure Lucian and Bev will tell you their own story in this blog but from my point of view its a great skills mix. Where my main interest is product quality and money (I don’t mind playing bad policeman), their main interest is the trainees and poverty alleviation in Africa. As I write they have interviewed and employed 18 trainees all I have to do is to teach them to make soap.
HERE’S WHEREÂ IÂ ASK YOU FOR MONEYÂ
Throughout this project the burden for all financials has laid heavily on Chris’s shoulders…the poor bloke has put up nearly all the money himself. I cannot believe how hard it has been for him to raise funding and if you look at the whole picture of Township Trades and its aspirations beyond just soapmaking I think you will agree with me. As things stand, with help from Triodos we will have enough loan capital to kick the dream into product and we also have a whole queue of customers waiting for our soap - that is one heck of an achievement but there is so much more to do. Hopefully there will be some sort of fundraising thingee somewhere on this blog or someone rich and as crazy as we are will read this and send him some. In two weeks time I go out to South Africa and what has so far been once removed will become reality. Both Lucian and Chris are trying to make me drive a car whilst I’m out there…I can deal with a stay in the murder capital of the world but the prospect of being behind a wheel leaves me quivering with fear. Perhaps funds will stretch to renting me an Elephant instead.  More later.
Adam’s tooth November 3, 2007
Posted by Chris in : Sales , add a commentSpoke to Adam Brett today…He’s holed up with two rotten teeth and heading to the dentists chair this weekend. Adam is the founder of CLEAN, the exciting new ethical soap brand hitting independent retailers in the UK. The next greatest thing about Adam is that he has been funded by www.triodos.com the Dutch ethical bank. We’re hoping that he’ll provide some funds for our training and deliver a decent juicy order for our  liquid soap. He’s worked with Melinda before - so lets hope that his two teeth get sorted and next week he gets sign off from those nice Dutch people for our order. Â
