A small cast iron ingot in the shape of a fish - made in a Bowmanville foundry by a Guelph company - has been recognized as one of the best products in the world for social and environmental benefit.
Guelph’s Lucky Iron Fish is the name of the company and the product it makes. The 'iron fish' helps address the global iron deficiency problem.
When it is immersed in boiling cooking water, it releases iron into food, enough to address more than 75 per cent of the daily requirement. It was first tested in Cambodia in 2012, a country with a very high prevalence of iron deficiency. The symbol of the fish is considered lucky in that country.
It was around 2014, when the company first began marketing the product. It sold about 100 of the cast iron fish each month.
That is until global media attention last year sparked a startling spike in demand, company vice-president of operations Tania Framst said in an interview.
That demand exploded to about 100 Lucky Iron Fish per hour. Total revenues so far from the sale of the product is over $1.3 million.
Gavin Armstrong, founder and president of Lucky Iron Fish, launched the company in 2012 while a biomedical doctoral student at the University of Guelph.
Last week, the company and its product were honoured at the B Corporation “Best for the World” celebration in California.
B-Corp is a global certification that rates companies on the basis of the social and environmental good they do. Lucky Iron Fish, the company, first received the designation in 2013.
Now, with the “Best for the World” designation, Lucky Iron Fish is in the top 10 percentile of all B-Corp rated companies worldwide, and among the top in Canada.
Around the world there are about 1,800 B-Corp companies, including several in Guelph.
“We embed social impact into everything we do, right from production all the way to our customers,” said Framst. “We manufacture in one of the safest, soundest foundries in all of Canada. Our packaging is 100 per cent recyclable materials. We use vegetable-based inks and coatings using non-petroleum products.”
The fish are packaged in Canada by ARC Industries in Guelph, an agency that serves people with intellectual disabilities. An artisans’ cooperative does the packaging in Cambodia, providing jobs for the disabled in that country.
Framst said when someone in the developed world purchases a Lucky Iron Fish – they retail for $30 – the company donates one to a family in the developing world. The product is also sold in the West to help those who are iron deficient.
