Premier Candle Corporation is joining an ever-growing number of local businesses that are stepping up and finding ways to give back to the community during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The largest privately owned candle manufacturer in Canada, Premier Candle Corporation (PCC) typically produces candles for brands like Bath & Body Works, Indigo, and Estee Lauder, as well as its affiliated Yorkville boutique, Kandl Artistique. Amid the pandemic, however, the brand is now dedicating a portion of its 240,000 square-foot production facilities in Mississauga to making face shields for frontline workers.
Personal protective equipment, including face shields, has been in continuous demand from hospitals across the country since the outbreak of COVID-19.
While many home tailors and fashion brands have begun producing non-medical masks to help limit disease transmission, PCC owner William Cheng and his team are taking on the considerable added challenge of manufacturing a piece of personal protective equipment suitable for use in hospitals.
The candle company has committed to making face shields for Trillium Health Partners, with the hospital working with PCC to approve a shield design. Plans are in the works to also produce face shields for Peel Regional Police, Mississauga Transit, and several local long-term care facilities.
Joanne Lee, CEO for the brand, says that it has been a lengthy research process.
PCC is currently making the first batch of 1,000 sample shields, and Lee says that the brand’s initial goal is to produce 10,000 shields for the hospital.
While the approval process for the face shields is underway, Cheng has made a donation of N95 and surgical masks to both Trillium and Sunnybrook Hospital.
Kandl Artistique has also partnered with the CB Wine Program’s COVID-19 initiative, which is seeing profits from their home delivery wine case sales donated to Sunnybrook, by matching their first $10,000 donation.
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Lee says PCC wants to do its part in supporting the community through the pandemic, and hopes that their face shield pledge can make a small but significant impact in helping protect frontline workers against COVID-19.
