Olivier Soapery: Strong Brand now with a Strong Direction
When Peter Porter and several other investors first purchased Sainte-Anne-de-Kent-based Olivier back in 2012, the company was in rough shape.
But it wasn’t anything to do with the product, Porter says. At the time, Olivier still had a strong brand nationally as a natural soap and skincare company that worked for many. The issues were financial.
“When we took it over, it was facing bankruptcy, not because of the product or company, but it lacked proper management,” says Porter, who is now one of the company’s four owners and Olivier’s president.
The idea to buy the company in the first place from its previous owners Pierre Pelletier and Isabel Gagner came when Porter, who previously worked for Salomon Skis, was asked to meet a group trying to save Olivier to give his insight on whether or not the company could survive or if it had the potential to go further.
“So I did, and I met with the board they had at the time and met with the owners. After looking at it deeply, we came to the conclusion that it just wasn’t going to survive,” Porter says.
“I went out and told some people about it and said ‘maybe we could save this thing.’ So we bought the assets and we took it over.”
Since 2012, Porter and other company owners have been working to reorganize and help the company refocus, a process he says has taken longer than expected, but is just about complete. He says this year the company will once again be profitable.
“It’s been a struggle. We think we’ve got it on the right track. Any time you buy a company in that kind of situation, there are always unforeseen problems,” says Porter. “It took us longer than we thought it was going to take us, but we persevered and we’re still there.”
Porter says the reason for Olivier’s financial troubles was a lack of direction.
“The biggest problem it had when we took it over was that they didn’t really have any concrete direction. When people get cash flow problems, they do whatever they can to make money. They were opening stores, they were trying to be a wholesaler, trying to be a retailer. They were just all over the map,” he says.
“So when we got into it, we said ‘listen, what are we?’ And what we are is a manufacturer.”
It took a few years to restructure the company to align with that direction. They started closing Olivier retail stores that the company could not support and refocused their efforts on creating and producing better products out of their factory in Sainte-Anne-de-Kent.
“We were able to succeed doing that and the one thing that we have done is protected the brand. The brand has a great reputation and we’re proud of that,” Porter says.
“The previous owner did a heck of a job building a brand and we enhanced that label to a point now where retailers want to sell our brand because we’re not all over the map. They can make money with the brand now and they’re proud to sell it.”
Though Olivier closed all their stores besides the one at their factory, their products are still carried by around 18 resellers in New Brunswick, Ontario and Quebec. The company also has strong sales through their website and through Amazon. It’s solid distribution, but Porter says there’s still lots room to grow. Except for this time, he says any growth will be strategic.
“We want to get bigger … We have the facility to do what needs to be done to grow,” Porter says. “We want to grow, but we want to grow properly, we just don’t want to grow for getting numbers.”
Much of New Brunswick’s economy is hinged on a few big industries. Porter says it’s small to medium-size businesses like Olivier that will help grow New Brunswick, so it’s important for people to support them.
“I think we live in a great province and we need small companies like this because, in my opinion, that’s the growth of New Brunswick and the stability of New Brunswick … these small companies like Olivier and there are a bunch of them around,” he says. “My advice would be to support your homegrown companies as much as you can.”