November 3, 2010
Valrhona is a French chocolate manufacturer based in the small town of Tain-l’Hermitage in Hermitage, a wine-growing district near Lyon. The company was founded in 1922 by a French pastry chef, Albéric Guironne, and is today one of the leading producers of chocolate in the world. The company also maintains the École du Grand Chocolat, a school for professional chefs with a focus on chocolate-based dishes and pastries. Valrhona focuses mainly on high-grade luxury chocolate marketed for professional as well as for private consumption. Though considered one of the foremost chocolate makers in the world, Valrhona is in roughly the same price range as Godiva and Neuhaus.
The product line includes chocolate confectionery, plain and flavored chocolate bars and bulk chocolate in bars or pellets. Valrhona produces vintage chocolate made from beans of a single year’s harvest from a specific plantation, primarily the Grand Crus which is grown in South America, the Oceania and the Caribbean. Currently three brands of vintage chocolates – Ampamakia, Gran Couva and Palmira – are in production with plantations on Madagascar, Trinidad and in Venezuela respectively.
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November 2, 2010
Luxottica is the world’s largest eyewear company. Its best known brands include Ray-Ban, Oliver Peoples, Revo, and Oakley. It also makes sunglasses and prescription frames for a multitude of designer brands such as Chanel and Prada, whose designs and trademarks are used under license. Leonardo Del Vecchio started the company in 1961, in Agordo north of Venice, Italy; today the company is headquartered in Milan. Its prime competitor is Safilo, which was founded in 1939 also in northern Italy. Del Vecchio began his career as the apprentice to a tool and die maker in Milan, but decided to turn his metalworking skills to making spectacle parts. So in 1961 he moved to Agordo in the province of Belluno, which is home to most of the Italian eyewear industry.
In 1967 he started selling complete eyeglass frames under the Luxottica brand. Convinced of the need for vertical integration, in 1974 he acquired Scarrone, a distribution company. The company listed in New York in 1990, and in Milan in December 2000, joining the MIB-30 (now S&P/MIB) index in September 2003. The listing enhanced the company’s ability to acquire other brands, starting with Italian brand Vogue in 1990, Persol and US Shoe Corporation (LensCrafters) in 1995, Ray-Ban in 1999 and Sunglass Hut, Inc. in 2001. They went looking for more retail companies, acquiring Sydney-based OPSM in 2003, Pearle Vision in 2004, Surfeyes in 2006, and Cole National in 2004. Most recently, it acquired Oakley in a US$2.1bn deal in November 2007.
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October 28, 2010
Phiten is a Japanese company that makes necklaces worn for the purpose of soothing one’s body. The medical and performance-enhancing claims relating to Phiten’s products are considered pseudoscience, and the technology behind the company’s products is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The company claims its products relieve fatigue by balancing the body’s signals that run from brain to the body and thus regulating the body’s ‘bio-electric currents’ through what the company calls the ‘Phild process,’ where titanium is turned into ‘aqua-titanium,’ a water-soluble form of titanium. The company claims to be able to integrate small amounts of the metal directly into the fabric.
Some of the professional athletes in Japan that wear Phiten necklaces include pro golfers, Olympic runners, and pro baseball players. In the USA, the company sponsors MLB players Josh Beckett, Tim Lincecum, Joba Chamberlain, Randy Johnson, Clay Buchholz, Justin Verlander, Justin Morneau, Brandon Webb, C.J. Wilson, and Dustin Pedroia.
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October 26, 2010
Zojirushi is a Japanese multinational manufacturer and marketer of high-quality vacuum flasks, bread machines and consumer electronics including electric water boilers, refrigerators and rice cookers. It has a branch in South Korea and subsidiary companies in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the United States. Zojirushi is listed on Osaka Securities Exchange.
The company was founded in 1918 as the Ichikawa Brothers Trading Company in Osaka and in 1948 was changed to Kyowa Manufacturing Co., Ltd. In 1961, its name was changed again to the Zojirushi Corporation and its corporate logo, including an elephant (Zōjirushi means ‘elephant mark’) was adopted.
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October 10, 2010
Lomography is the commercial trademark of Lomographische AG, an Austria photography company. The name is inspired by the former state-run optics manufacturer LOMO PLC of Saint Petersburg, Russia. LOMO created and produced the 35 mm LOMO LC-A Compact Automat camera — which became the centerpiece of Lomography’s marketing and sales activities. This camera was loosely based upon the Cosina CX-1 and introduced in the early 1980s.
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September 30, 2010
Uniqlo is a Japanese casual wear designer, manufacturer and retailer. Uniqlo is Japan’s leading clothing retail chain in terms of both sales and profits. The company also operates in China, Hong Kong, South Korea, the United Kingdom, France, the United States, Singapore, Taiwan, and Russia. Originally a division of Fast Retailing Co., Ltd., on November 1, 2005, Uniqlo Co., Ltd. was born of corporate restructuring, and now exists as a 100% consolidated subsidiary of Fast Retailing, which is listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
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September 30, 2010
Bolex is a Swiss company that manufactures motion picture cameras and lenses. The most notable products of which are in the 16 mm and Super 16 mm formats. The Bolex was initially founded by Ukranian engineer and inventor Jacques Bogopolsky in the 1940s. Bolex is derived from his name. He had previously designed cameras for Alpa. Bolex cameras were particularly important for early television news, nature films, documentaries and the avant garde, and are still favoured by many animators today.
Some later models are electrically powered, the majority of those manufactured since the 1930s use a spring-wound clockwork. The 16 mm spring-wound Bolex is a popular introductory camera in film schools. Today, the Bolex factory in Switzerland continues to produce new 16mm and Super 16 film cameras and also can convert Bolex H16 reflex models to super 16mm.
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September 21, 2010
CrossFit is a strength and conditioning brand. CrossFit combines weightlifting, sprinting, and gymnastics. Athletes run, row, jump rope, climb rope and carry odd objects. CrossFit is used in nearly 1,700 gyms worldwide and by many fire departments, law enforcement agencies and military organizations including the Canadian Forces, and the Royal Danish Life Guards. The program even names workout moves to honor deceased troops, like a grueling forward-and-backward sprint combo dubbed ‘Griff’ for U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Travis L. Griffin. Its mascot is ‘Pukey the Clown.’
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September 13, 2010
Y Combinator is an American seed-stage startup funding firm, started in 2005 by Paul Graham, Robert Morris, Trevor Blackwell, and Jessica Livingston. Y Combinator provides seed money, advice, and connections at two 3-month programs per year. In exchange, they take an average of about 6% of the company’s equity. Compared to other startup funds, Y Combinator provides very little money ($17,000 for startups with 2 founders and $20,000 for those with 3 or more). This reflects Graham’s theory that between free software, dynamic languages, the web, and Moore’s Law, the cost of founding a startup has greatly decreased. The firm is named after a construct in the theory of functional programming.
Y Combinator was started after Graham gave a talk at his alma mater, Harvard (where he earned a PhD in Computer Science). He suggested founders seek seed funding from angel investors preferably those who had made money in technology. He soon after organized Y Combinator to offer seed funding to startups. As of June 2009, Y Combinator had funded over 118 startups. The number of startups funded in each cycle has been gradually increasing. The first cycle in summer 2005 had eight startups. In the summer 2010 cycle, there were 38. Some of the better-known funded companies include Reddit and Dropbox.
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September 10, 2010
Areva is a French public multinational industrial conglomerate formed in September of 2001, and is the world’s largest supplier of nuclear energy. It is the only company with a presence in each industrial activity linked to nuclear energy: mining, chemistry, enrichment, combustibles, services, engineering, nuclear propulsion and reactors, treatment, recycling, stabilization, and dismantling. The corporate name Areva is inspired by the Trappist Santa Maria de la Real monastery in Arevalo in Spain.
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July 20, 2010
Nalgene is the main product line of Nalge Nunc International, a distributor and manufacturer of plastic laboratory containers that has diversified into the field of containers for outdoor sports. In recent years, studies have suggested that polycarbonate plastics such as the ones Nalgene used may leach endocrine disruptors like Bisphenol A (BPA). Nalgene denies that the quantity leached from their products posed a significant threat to health, but as of April 2008 they began phasing out production of any BPA containing products. All current Nalgene water bottles are made from copolyester.
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July 20, 2010
SIGG is a Swiss manufacturing company that sells aluminum and stainless steel water bottles. The disadvantage of thin aluminum is that it does not offer much insulation, which means that condensation can build on the outside of the bottle when cold drinks are transported, and hot drinks will result in a bottle which can not be comfortably touched. SIGG sells insulating sleeves that protect the bottle from dents, help insulate the beverages inside them and eliminate the condensation issue. The interior of the bottles is coated with a food-compatible stove enamel. The bottle is part of the permanent design collection of the NY Museum of Modern Art.
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