Dan Lazarescu, a former shareholder in Medicover medical service provider and in TotalSoft software company, says that after having worked with Medicover for 10 years, where he also filled the general manager position, it is high time for him to start a new business.
Lazarescu, 61, founded, together with other shareholders, a plant manufacturing natural products in Salonta, Bihor county, a business he considers as having a very high growth potential.
"I work with projects, I build a business, it grows up and leaves home. This is what's happened with Medicover, too," he says.
Thus, in 2005 Lazarescu exited all the businesses he had at that moment in Romania, mainly Medicover and TotalSoft, as he says, and applied for an investment in production, through SAPARD programme, which generated Canah company.
In figures, the story of Canah can be summarised as a SAPARD project that resulted in an investment of 1.7m euros, a plant with a processing capacity of 1,000 tonnes of hemp annually and 20 tonnes of harvested hemp seeds, waiting to be turned into natural products, such as hemp oil or hemp flour. However, for Dan Lazarescu, the resulted business is the upshot of several ideas and opportunities.
"I read a book "Everything about Hemp" and was fascinated with the idea. Thus, I found out this plant worked in four therapeutic areas (...). And I kept this idea in mind," says Lazarescu.
Second, his exit from the two important businesses he had left a void that needed to be filled.
He was unwilling to speak about the stock held in the two companies or about he sums he collected following his exit.
What drove him to start the new business was the increasingly wider coverage of natural therapies in North America and Europe.
"At the beginning, we wanted to export, we planned to seal contracts with Italy and Germany, but in the last six or seven months we also looked at the Romanian market and we realised it held some opportunities, too. There are no hemp products or hemp oil in Romanian stores," said the businessman.
"In 2005 we did a test with hemp in Satu Mare area and when we decided to set up Canah we started looking in the western area of the country. Thus, in 2, 3 months we managed to lease a plot of land for 49 years in Salonta, on which we started investing in the plant," said Lazarescu.
After the first harvest, demand on the part of suppliers started coming. Canah suppliers currently cultivate around 200 hectares of land, and 3 of them hold organic certificates.
In August, the company will launch 3 products on the market and also plans to introduce hemp flour and is looking for a bakery to this end.
For the second SAPARD project it wants to initiate it has to decide whether it further banks on seed or starts processing hemp stem.
Canah
After exiting Medicover and TotalSoft, Dan Lazarescu applied for a production investment through SAPARD programme in the wake of which Canah was born
Investments stood at 1.7 million euros
The plant, located in Salonta, Bihor county, has a processing capacity of 1,000 tonnes of hemp annually and 20 tonnes of harvested hemp seed
The company's suppliers currently cultivate 200 hectares of land, and 10 of them hold organic certificates
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