Tag Archive for: news

March 2017 – Huddle.com

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How New Brunswick’s Prelam Enterprises Freshened Up the Air Freshener Market

Moncton’s Prelam Enterprises is leading in the business of making sure your poo doesn’t stink.

The company is the maker of Just ‘a Drop, the product that founders Luc Jalbert and Don Goguen claim was the first ever to prevent odour before you, you know, go “number two.”

“Everybody kept asking ‘how much do you put in the [toilet] bowl?’ says Jalbert.  “And we kept saying ‘just a drop, that’s all you need.’ That’s how the name came about.”

Officially launched in 2005 at Walmart Canada, Just ‘a Drop had to compete with air freshening heavyweights like SC Johnson and Proctor & Gamble. But Jalbert says Just ‘a Drop was the only product on shelves at the time that offered a more … preventable neutralizing liquid solution to foul bathroom odours.

“We were the only one until a few years ago when people started copying us. So for us, it was pretty easy initially to compete against them because they didn’t have a competing product,” Jalbert says. “Then some copy-cats started to show up and that’s normal in business. We had to educate consumers, so we put in a lot of money in Canada to advertise on TV [and] educate our consumers about Just ‘a Drop and its benefits, why you use it before you go and why it really works.”

Though Prelam Enterprises put a lot of work into promoting the product nationally through advertising, Jalbert says their customers are their biggest ambassadors and are the company’s number one way of advertising.

“It makes people giggle because we’re talking about ‘number twos’, so it’s not sexy to talk about, but it’s funny … People make jokes all the time,” he says. “That’s what people seem to like. They like the fact that it works and you don’t have to be embarrassed.”

The giggle factor and the fact that it’s allowing people to openly discuss the taboo topic of bowel movements were what got Just ‘a Drop some big media attention. The product has been featured on Dr. Oz, the Howard Stern Show, The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch and CBC’s Venture.

It also got attention from competitors. Last year, Reckitt Benckiser, makers of Air Wick, approached Prelam to license its formula to use in some of their products.

“Air Wick approached us to license and make us produce for them under Just ‘a Spray, a new derivative of Just ‘a Drop,’ Jalbert says. “They are water-based formulas so we produce over a million bottles for Air Wick. So ironically, a competition approached to produce for them.”

Jalbert says being approached by Air Wick showed they created something that was making a splash.

“It was a big deal. It validated that we were an innovator in a category. We were the pioneers in that space, the bathroom,” he says. “We’re not an air freshener, we’re solely focused on your ‘number two’ situation and identified that to the point where they’ve launched in eight countries already … It’s validating that we were on the right track all along and that we were innovative.”

Prelam now has several “Just ‘a” products lines. Jalbert says in the next three months Just ‘a Drop and Just ‘a Spray will be released for retail in the United States. It’s already in stores in Mexico and Chile. There are plans this spring and summer to expand in the European and Chinese markets as well.

“Just A’ Drop is going to maintain itself. It’s like a bottle of ketchup, everybody needs it when they run out. So we’re going to keep going to market,” Jalbert says. “We’re just going to keep growing markets and expanding our territories.”

Moncton Prelam Enterprises

May 2011 – The Inside Tract

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Just’a Drop is just the thing for GI sufferers.
Just’a Drop is an air freshening product developed to block (rather than mask or overpower) bathroom odours. It contains a combination of concentrated plant extracts that work to neutralize odours by forming an instant, deodorizing barrier on the surface of the toilet water – with
just one drop. Simply add a single drop from the discrete bottle into the toilet before use. One smal 15 ml bottle lasts for about 400 uses.
Just’a Drop is available in three scents: Refreshing Spring, Floral Oasis, and Eucalyptus. ( Our staff preferred the Eucalyptus scent when we tested the product.) Unlike other bathroom odour product, these scents are very subtle and do not linger in an obvious way after you flush, making them ideal for use in public restrooms or when visiting friends. They come in small bottles, suitable for purse or pocket, and as individual singles packs.
This product is also environmentally friendly, biodegradable, and safe for septic systems. Especially when compared to most other air refreshing, including aerosol sprays and harsh chemicals, Just’a Drop is a green, convenient choice.
Just’a Drop is available at numerous department stores and pharmacies across Canada, online at justadrop.ca, or by phone at 1-877-249-6846. In stores, it is normally located near the toilet paper, but you might also find it next to the household chemicals or with air fresheners. The company
offers a 30- day money-back guarantee.

Note: The GI Society has not received no remuneration from Just’ a Drop or its affiliates for this review.

October 2006 – Telegraph Journal

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Local businesses always boast something new

Metro Moncton’s reputation as an important business sector continues to grow and is fueled by the ongoing efforts of the Greater Moncton Chamber of Commerce, an independant business organisation which champions growth as a commitment to both its members and the community.
There is no clearer evidence of that commitment than the eight categoris it offers in GMCC’s annual Greater Moncton Excellence awards.

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April 2010: Telegraph Journal

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Odour eliminator focused on changing people’s bathroom habits one drop at a time, right here in the Maritimes!

JOAN LEBLANC

MONCTON – A manufacturer of high quality household products, Prelam Enterprises Ltd. headquartered in Moncton, New Brunswick. Founded by Luc Jalbert and Donald Goguen, Prelam is celebrating their 10 year anniversary.

The company is best known for their innovative product ‘Just a Drop’, a toilet odour neutralizer specially formulated to eliminate personal bathroom odours. “It’s the #1 solution to your #2 problem,” says Jalbert, who created the product.

Made from natural plant extracts and food grade colourings, ‘Just a Drop’ is totally safe for all types of toilets, safe for septic systems and is non-toxic, making it a very safe product for use anywhere.
“Just a few drops placed in the toilet forms a film over the top of the water surface, trapping odours below the water so they can’t escape into the air. One bottle of ‘Just a Drop’ is equivalent to three bottles of air freshener spray; plus it provides total elimination of odours, it doesn’t just cover them up,” he adds.
Available in 15 ml., 6 ml. bottles as well as single use pouches that are great for travel. ‘Just a Drop’ comes in three pleasant scents: the original Eucalyptus as well as the new Floral Oasis and Refreshing Spring.
The product is sold in many major retail outlets across Canada including Walmart, Zellers, Shoppers Drug Mart and Loblaws and in many other countries as well.

“This is totally revolutionizing the way we go to the bathroom. We’ve had people who have purchased the product, call and tell us how well it worked and that it’s improved their quality of life,” Jalbert notes.
He explains that many people today suffer from health problems such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Chrones or various forms of colitis that cause offensive bathroom odours, which has kept them from going out into the public or even from visiting family and friends.
“It’s embarrassing, so most people would rather stay home and not have to deal with the situation. But ‘Just a Drop’ allows people to use the bathroom and not leave behind any tell-a-tale odours,” he notes. Not just for use in your home, ‘Just a Drop’ is perfect at the office, university dorms
and any other shared facilities as well as boats, recreational vehicles and in hotels and motels.

“Anywhere you need it, you can use ‘Just a Drop,” Jalbert adds.

Sales of ‘Just a Drop’, have been steadily growing, becoming one of Prelam Enterprises Ltd.’s most popular products and selling more than one million and six hundred thousand bottles to date.(…)

Competing against international heavyweights like S.C. Johnson and Procter & Gamble in the air freshener business, Prelam Enterprises Ltd. unveiled its newest products recently at the Toronto Grocery Innovation Show and was described as the “most clever of innovations this year” by Global TV.

They will be taking them on the road to Hong Kong and Vegas shows in the coming months. A currently ongoing contest sponsored by Prelam Enterprises Ltd. will see the winner take home a year’s supply of ‘Just a Drop’ Toilet Odour Neutralizer. Ask your local store for ‘Just a Drop’ and get more information on the product on their website at: www.prelam.com or check out the many comments on their Facebook site.
Also, check at www.justdrop.ca to print your Just’a Drop coupon and save 75 cents on your next Just’a Drop purchase!

January 2009: The Big Idea

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Excerpt from Donny Deutsch – The Big Idea

Here’s one you’ll love. A problem every human being has that’s a little delicate. Luc Galbert came on the show to discuss his solution to this unmentionable, but very real issue, bathroom smells. The idea came to him when he was at his mother in-law’s house and he had to go. With no air fresheners in sight, he considered locking himself in the bathroom until he died of embarrassment. In that moment, Luc had an inspiration: “Everybody’s gotta go.” What if it was possible to eliminate bathroom smells altogether-not just cover them up with floral scents, but get rid of them? Over the next year, Luc researched the problem, and ultimately aligned himself with an Asian manufacturer who devised a natural, nontoxic
formula, which he called Just a Drop. The idea was to squirt a single drop into the toilet before you go, and, like magic-no bad smells. Luc tested his product by starting with everyone he knew. He gave bottles to his doctor, dentist, friends, neighbors-and the response was beyond enthusiastic. “Women especially were clamoring for it,” he said. “They told me it was better than marriage counseling.”Just a Drop is a no-brainer solution. There’s no question in my mind that Luc will make millions with his product. He’s already sold 600,000 units online and through Wal-Mart in Canada. All because he had a moment of embarrassment, and decided to make it go away for good.

July 2006: The Chronicle Herald

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The sweet smell of success

This is Luc Jalbert’s $10 millions dilemna: how can he get people to talk about what they leave in the bathroom?

he answer, he believes, could transform his kitchen-table company into a $10 millions success story, almost overnight.

But only if this forty-years-old entrepreneur from Moncton , N.B., can get people talking that is. His tool of choice: the toilet bowl. The location: Montreal Grand Prix, Manhattan’s Square Garden or Toronto’s Canada Day.

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June 2006: Times & Transcript

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Moncton takes fresh air to the Big Apple.

New Yorkers on bathroom habits
BY JESSE ROBICHAUD
TIMES & TRANSCRIPT STAFF

A Moncton based company is using some guerilla marketing tactics to take on air-care industry giants like Proctor & Gamble and SC Johnson.Moncton’s Luc Jalbert, vice-president of Prelam Enterprises, and his business team followed the stink all the way to Times Square in New York City this week to bring their Just’a Drop air-care product to the masses.

Just’a Drop, which is available in Moncton and nation-wide at Wal-Mart and Jean Coutu, is described as “the only air-care product that suppresses unpleasant bathroom odours at the source – before they escape into the air. Parking their shiny white porcelain toilet on the sidewalk at the foot of Virgin Mega-Store, the ragtag team did their best to cause some Big Apple commotion as they asked New Yorkers to “sit down and be counted” by taking a survey that looks into their bathroom habits and odour preferences.

They were also urging passerby to take the survey online at www.odourvoter.com.

The irreverent street campaign, which has already passed through Montreal and will touch down in Toronto on Canada Day, received a number of interesting visitors such as the world-famous Naked Cowboy, who took a seat at the throne and sang a song that gathered hordes of curious onlookers.
The Howard Stern Show also checked in to see what all the fuss was about, and ran the interview twice Wednesday.

Although Jalbert hadn’t made any arrangements with City officials prior to taking his products to the streets of NYC, Just’a Drop has indeed made quite a splash as initial looks of apprehension turned to curious smiles as strangers approached the toilet.

“It’s a guerilla activity, and for a guerilla activity you have to just show up. It’s a madhouse out here,” said a very pleased Jalbert speaking from his cellphone on Wednesday as the Odour Voter promotion continued to unfold to the sound track of New York traffic.

The operation even drew attention from some of Manhattan’s finest.

“We couldn’t believe it. Even the cops were asking us for samples.”

Without the millions of dollars juggernauts like Proctor & Gamble and SC Johnson spend on advertising, Moncton’s Prelam Enterprises doesn’t have much choice but to be creative in their push to gain North American market share in the lucrative air-care industry.

As the obvious underdog in a David & Goliath battle over the world’s toilets, Jalbert and his colleagues have clearly adopted a “go big or go home attitude” that allows them to punch way above their weight.But so far the advertising campaign is paying off for the company that produces
its biodegradable product in the Moncton Industrial Park.

Prelam is also looking to markets in Japan and the United Kingdom. “I think we’re going to make a splash in the United States. It’s the beginning of it, we still have a lot of work to do though, nothing is easy,” said Jalbert.

April 2006: The Evening News

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Ambitious entrepreneurs tackle odour problem
Moncton-based entrepreneurs are making a big splash in North America by tackling the universal problem of embarrassing bathroom odours.

Luc Jalbert and Don Goguen of Prelam Enterprises have seen their latest innovation, the aptly named Just’a Drop™, take off in Canada. The product is a revolutionary toilet freshener – one drop in the bowl before you go that neutralizes offensive odours before they become an embarrassing problem. With a firm grasp of Canadian market now in hand, Prelam is looking to grow its success south of border.

Read More

September 2005: Times & Transcript (2)

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All it takes is Just’a drop.
Inventor says no bathroom should be without new product that neutralizes unwanted odours before they happen.
Luc Jalbert can smell success. He says it has a hint of lime.
Luc Jalbert is the vice-president of Prelam Enterprises Inc., which had made the Moncton Industrial Park Home to a product Jalbert says no bathroom should be without.

Just’a Drop is a new kind of air freshener developed by the local company.
“Right before you sit down, you just put in one drop and you’ll see a film created on top of the water.”
Jalbert says, explaining the biodegradable product almost completely eliminates bathroom odours.
Prelam started running commercial featuring Just’a Drop on the Weather network and Météomédia at the end of August and just started a local campaign.
The company started selling the product nearly a year ago, and got their big break this spring when it appeared in Wal-Mart stores nation-wide, but Jalbert says it’s the television commercials that have made a big difference in sales.
« Now we’re feeling the momentum, » he says. « Sales were slow, but nobody knew what it was… We saw our two biggest days (at Wal-Mart) in the last three days. »
Jalbert came across the formula while in China on a business trip. He brought it back and gave it to partner Don Goguen to test.
Goguen didn’t mention the product again for some time. « One day he just walked into my office and said ‘hey, that stuff really works! » Jalbert says. They knew they had a winner but they also had a dilemma.
« The challenge was to create a marketing strategy. You are talking about poop, » he says, « We had to get the consumer talking about something nobody talks about. »
They also needed a way to let people know how the product works.
« Everything else you buy is for after, ours is for before, » he says. « Normally you would just spray the can (of freshener) and hope nobody goes in, whereas this actually fills the air with a nice, clean smell and neutralizes odours. »That`s where the TV spots have come in handy – that, and a deal with Irving Tissue to package samples of the product with their Majesta brand toilet paper.
Jalbert says once they get people to try their product once, they’re hooked. « I tested with my dentist, my doctor, my accountant. People were still using it six months later, » he says. « The question was how do I get the mass population to test it without going broke? So we made a deal with Irving Tissue and they put samples in 25,000 packages which got distributed to Wal-Mart. »
Now Just’a Drop is poised to go global. Jalbert says he’s already working with interested parties in Japan, the UK and the US.
« That tells me we really have a winner. It’s a heck of a healthy sign, » he says. « We`re still the little guys, but we are starting to be proud of that… We are going to revolutionize the way people got to the bathroom. »
Jalbert says they are also working on two spin off products – a smaller, even more portable product and an automatic dispenser that would add a drop to the water when you sit on the seat.

September 2005: Times & Transcript

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A scoop on poop with no stink

Some days my job is worth waking up for.
Those are the days when you head home at night and feel you’ve had some kind of positive impact on the world. The days when you write a piece and it “sings” as we say in the “biz”, meaning you have written prose that would be Pulitzer-worthy if those Pulitzer folks would just pick a copy of Times &
Transcript.
They are the days when stories you tell are gripping and gritty, when you hit a source that can articulate their story in a compelling way.
And then there are the interviews, and these are often my favorite ones of all, when you hang up the phone and think “well, I won’t soon forget that one!”
They’re few and far between, but I had one of those last Friday when I had the pleasure of doing a halfhour interview about poop. No, that was not a typo. I did an interview about poop. Actually not so much about poop per se as about how a local company’s new product helps eliminate the unpleasant odours associated with said action.
I can somehow picture these folks dreaming up this product with some king of Eureka’s moment and then the excitement slowly draining from them as they realize their conundrum: they’ve come up with a product that everyone wants to use, but no one wants to talk about.
I mean, how do you explain it nicely?
Luc Jalbert, the vice-president of Prelam Enterprises, the company that makes Just’a Drop, the indelicate product in question, has had a lot of practice. He’s become refreshingly frank about the whole thing. After all, he explains philosophically, it’s something everyone has to do.
True, but paradoxically, the product is aimed directly at those who would rather the rest of us never know they just did what everyone has to do.
Faced with this dilemma, what does a good company do? Prelam has apparently decided to tackle thing head on.
Their TV commercial does not feature courtesy flowers floating in the air as a well-dressed family (mom dad, one girl, one boy and a dog) breathe deep in the sweet smelling sanctity of their bathroom.Nope, Prelam has gone with an ostrich sticking its head in the sand as an announcer intones “Is this what you do after your husband uses the bathroom?” and a raccoon praying no one will use the facilities right after him (and for deliverance from the stench one assumes.)
Their packaging features a little cartoon man sitting on the potty, then standing with his smiling family members afterwards.
Mid-interview I get the giggles as Mr. Jalbert explains their excitement over a deal with Irving Tissue to include samples of the product in 25,000 packages of toilet paper. “Twenty-five thousand people are going for a poop with our product “he says.
I’m sorry, but poo is funny. I bet you’re laughing right now.
Luckily I am doing a phone interview so he doesn’t have to watch as I lose it and I sound admirably in control by the time I ask my next question.
I’d love to hear someone interview him live on television or radio.
But the real challenge come post interview. How does one write up a story about going to number 2? What does one call it, for instance, so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of one’s readres.”
But then, this is the kind of challenge that makes my job worth getting up for. It may not change the world ( well, actually it might help make it smell better), but it’s already got me smiling and sometime that’s changes enough.