Tell us about your business….

Our core business is the UK manufacture of beautifully scented home fragrance products (www.canova.co.uk). We have been hand pouring candles and room diffusers in our factory in the Herefordshire for over 10 years now, employing mostly local people from the small town we are located in.

How has your business been affected by Covid-19?

We design and develop candles and diffusers for many of the UK’s small and medium size independent retailers as well as for one of the largest department store chains in the UK. Due to Covid-19 all ‘non-essential’ shops had to close their doors on 24th March resulting in our customers immediately cancelling nearly all orders that we had on our system, some ready for immediate despatch and others not yet having been made. The component pieces for the unfinished production had already been purchased leaving us in a very worrying and vulnerable situation.

We quickly assessed our options very carefully and began immediately to start to reduce our business overheads. Unfortunately, this meant that it was necessary to start sending some of our very loyal workforce home.

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What prompted you to create a new product during this time?

We thought long and hard as to how we could keep functioning as a business during this awful time and also, how we could support and do our bit for the local community. As no one knew how long this was going to last, we had to think of something that could be sustained now and in for the long term.

As we also have experience in the manufacturing of bath and body products, hand sanitiser was the obvious product, but we knew that there would be a shortage of components as, very quickly, there would be an unprecedented demand for alcohol, bottles, caps etc. Shipping ports in the Far East had been closed due to Covid-19 so demand on UK and mainland

Europe for components and ingredients was already strained. We had some challenges ahead but we were determined to get our product on the market and available to our key workers.

Hand sanitiser in the shops had sold out everywhere so we knew we had to do something.

What can you tell us about your Gift of Hope?

Whilst many of the larger organisations had quickly began to produce hand sanitiser in bulk, it was mainly for use by the NHS. Stock for other key workers was still in very short supply.

Our aim was to produce a hand sanitiser that not only dispensed the crucial 70% alcohol content required known to kill bacteria but to also offer something more. The constant use of hand sanitiser quickly dries the skin leaving it rough and sometimes very sore. For this reason, we added a good dose of organic aloe vera to the PURITX formulation – Aloe vera is known for its soothing and moisturising properties meaning that PURITX can leave hands feeling soft and protected at the same time.

Which charity does your Gift of Hope raise money and awareness for and why have you chosen them?

As already mentioned, the NHS workers were being supplied with hand sanitiser but other key worker such as supermarket workers, postal workers, delivery drivers, school workers, refuse collectors etc were still finding hand sanitiser hard to come by. For this reason, we set up our ‘Key Worker’ programme. Through our website, Key workers can apply for free hand sanitiser for themselves and for their colleagues.

20% of the total production of PURITX hand sanitiser has been allocated our ‘Key Worker’ program.

Where can your product be purchased? Please share your web links so we can direct people to you:

PURITX ‘Just’ Aloe vera can be purchased through our website. www.puritx.com

Additionally, and very excitingly, we currently have 2 beautifully fragranced options available, with another 3 coming soon.

Our candles and diffusers have been expertly developed using beautiful fragrances, so it seemed only right to infuse our hand sanitiser with beautiful blends of essential oils too!