AG Hair had just moved to its 700,00-sq foot modern facility in Coquitlam, B.C. This was an effort towards expanding its operations across the world.
The company which deals with salon care products had just moved to the manufacturing facility two years before the coronavirus outbreak. Its next move was to hit the European market.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic brought a new twist. The company was forced to back off its European market plans and close several of its salons in the United States and Canada.
Since very few of its products were being bought, the company had to stop manufacturing around mid-march.
This meant that all the 82 employees working at the manufacturing plant had to go home. In other words, the company was brought to its knees by the virus.
AG Hair, just like any other company could have shut everything and waited for things to come back to normal. However, the company quickly changed tack and started to distribute hand sanitizers to frontline health workers across the country.
Graham Fraser, AG Hair Chief Executive Officer they saw the need facing the healthcare sector and decided to do something.
“We realized that there was a great need to support the healthcare workers and we decided to lend a hand, by providing some of the products they needed most,” said Graham.
The company applied for a license to produce hand sanitizers from the Canadian and U.S. authorities. It was given 48 hours to provide samples and got the license within a week after submitting the application.
“When we thought of making the hand sanitizers, we knew that the challenge will be convincing relevant authorities to give us a license. But to our surprise, the process took a shorter time than we expected. I think the authorities also saw the need that was laying ahead and knew they could count on us” said Fraser.
In just a month, AG Hair was producing thousands of sanitizer products both to the healthcare workers and the general populace. The products were being sold on Amazon and the company’s own website.
In addition, 10 percent of the company’s products were channeled to the needy, identified by non-governmental organizations like United Way.
Another company, Parallel 49 Brewing also sought AG Hair’s permission to use its facility to manufacture its own line of hand-sanitizer products.
The two companies wanted to ensure that health workers in Canada and the United States get all the support they needed to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
Graham Fraser attributes the success and quick turn-around of things to his team. The change for from hair-making to the manufacture of hand sanitizers also helped to bring back all the hair staff to work.
“We saw an opportunity and we couldn’t let it go…and the kind of energy that every person had was just incredible. Everybody in the company was like, how are we going to overcome this”, recalls the CEO
“I believe that we succeeded because of the kind of team we have. We were all optimistic and never considered, even for a moment thought that we will be defeated”.
Nicole Coleman, a partner at Deloitte said that AG Hair’s desire to invest in the future is what makes it one of the best-managed companies.
“I love the strategy used by this company, there are very few companies that would quickly shift focus and succeed the way AG Hair has done. I believe with this kind of innovation and entrepreneurial mindset; the company will achieve a lot” said Coleman
AG Hair was started in 1989 by John Davis who is a hairstylist and artist Lotte Davis. The couple started packaging hair products in the basement of their home and distributing them straight to salons in different parts of Canada.
AG Hair has clearly demonstrated that there’s nothing impossible, for anyone who is determined. They managed to turn around the situation to their advantage and in the process helped millions of people.
