cover story*
F
our children is a full-time job,” laughs Judith Saulez of Durban North, and she was just that – a full-time mom. Prior to that, she’d worked for an independent training organisation which operated across different industry sectors, developing their leadership, sales and service disciplines. Useful skills for her business today, in particular she says, understanding the sales process, how to implement it, serve your customers, and how to sell. Judith knew that when she looked into the future, she didn’t want to be that mom who went into a crisis when her children left home: “I knew I wanted something into which I could pour myself when everyone had left the nest.” Judith had always been interested in health, lifestyle and exercise, and was a firm believer in the benefits of probiotics for gut health: “When I was introduced to topical probiotics and saw the impressive results, I was excited. I wanted to explore how we could take this product to market. The science behind Probacare comes out of Belgium – it started with five clinical trials which proved conclusively that topical probiotics could be used in hospitals to outcompete superbugs. “We began with the Probacare concept in 2019 … in a converted room in our home, bottling, labelling and packaging our products,” says Judith. “The entire family was involved
14
LEFT: Judith Saulez. BELOW LEFT: Judith’s Probacare products for family, home and pets.
3
Judith Saulez - PROBACARE
in the design and packaging, and in the last quarter of 2020, we opened to the public as an online business.” Judith says it wasn’t easy returning to the workplace after 20 years: “It’s hard building up confidence, learning new skills, launching yourself into the whole new world of technology. I sometimes felt paralysed with fear, but I kept going. The gift of Covid of course, was that it gave us time to think about what we wanted to communicate, how to design the packaging and so on.” Judith’s two older children are at university, the two younger ones still at home. She grins, “Having teenage skins at
For Judith, the vision was that Probacare would restore and protect family hygiene home was another catalyst for our products.” For Judith, the vision was that Probacare would restore and protect family hygiene: “It’s this same technology which applies to the personal hygiene side of the business, where common skin problems are linked to bad
w w w . t h e r i d g e o n l i n e . c o . z a
bacteria. Probiotics are all about outcompeting bad bacteria – killing all bacteria can lead to a massive pandemic which is directly related to anti-microbial resistance.” She says they began with the three products they believed would receive the least consumer resistance – their patented Probaderm Face Cream, Face Wash, and Probiotic Mister: “We coupled that with an education programme on Instagram and Facebook. It didn’t take long before we expanded to home cleaning products – ProbaClean – and we’ve just launched ProbaPet.” Judith says they had a very clear idea of what they wanted to convey about the business – clean, safe and trustworthy: “We’ve created a premium product at a mid-tier price point, and we’re really happy with the current trajectory of the response to Probacare. We’ve been assisted by the global trend towards topical probiotics, and to be honest, we’ve been pleasantly surprised by people’s understanding of the technology, more than we had originally given them credit for.” At the moment, Probacare is only online, but Judith’s currently in negotiations with a major retailer, and it looks likely that within six months, they’ll be stocking their products.
*
FOR MORE INFO www.probacare.co.za
