As is well known a tragic series of events began to unfold in Europe, back in February of 2014 when Russia began the illegal takeover and annexation of Crimea, and later in February 2022 unleashing a full scale ground invasion of the sovereign state of Ukraine.
The ethical, moral, legal and humanitarian wrongs that have been committed are shocking and deplorable and Russia needs to be punished whilst Ukraine needs our help.
The right thing to do, isn’t always the easy thing to do.
Many countries, and trading blocks stepped up and immediately began to introduce punitive sanctions against Russia, getting harder and stronger with each incremental step. Sanctions have been aimed at Russia’s imports and exports, their banking and their trading.
These sanctions sent an clear and unambiguous message to Moscow. Whatever it costs, we will do the right thing. And yes, there was a cost. The financial impact of sanctions and feared retaliatory supply cuts in the energy sector had a major impact on a painful rate of inflation.
Among the many other sanctions-related issues that economists will continue to discuss for decades, there was a particularly sad story that touched upon the lives of our colleagues and me.
Since the seed of an idea was planted five years ago, our team at The Natural Intimacy Brand, along with our external collaborators, has poured our hearts into a monumental and defining project: Natural Intimacy Vegan Condoms.
Having completed the entire product design and prototyping process, we embarked on the pre-production phase. This involved ordering custom-made materials, which proved to be a challenging task during the lockdown. The initial three-month turnaround for these materials was extended to an unprecedented 24 months!
After enduring these delays, the crucial materials were finally delivered to our partner factory, CPR GmbH in Germany, which was, at the time, the largest condom manufacturer in Europe. Just as we received our first samples of product, Vladimir Putin entered, stage right.
The first waves of sanctions were placed against Russia, it’s regime and it’s economy. At that point CPR GmbH hit problems. An estimated 25% of it’s business was with Russia and it had many open, pending invoices with Russian clients which suddenly could not be settled. The dominos began to fall and sadly CPR Gmbh went into insolvency.
For the employees and their dependent suppliers, this event was a massive and life-changing experience. Losing a job or a client during economically unstable times is an incredibly difficult situation to be in. While the impact on us here was smaller, it still stung – we had to shelve our vegan condom project.
Let’s be straight, CPR GmbH was another innocent victim of the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine. There is no more to say on this issue.
Obviously, we have the option to outsource our product design to an alternative manufacturer for production. We are confident that we can find one who meets our high ethical standards while maintaining quality and a reasonable price point.
However, we have decided to take a step back for a while to observe the effects of the insolvency of Europe’s largest condom manufacturer on the market. Additionally, due to Brexit-related issues, there are new regulatory requirements for importing condoms into the UK, a crucial market for us. These changes would also have an impact on the UK market, which we need to closely monitor.
If you’re an ethical condom manufacturer interested in partnering with us, please reach out, and we can discuss whether this is the opportune moment to proceed.
For two decades David has been the owner and director of several marketing and distribution companies. During this time he has learned the indisputable benefits of looking after customers, colleagues, workers, suppliers and the local community, treating them all as respected stakeholders in a common project. Recently he consolidated his personal beliefs and business ethics by founding the Natural Intimacy brand and developing it as an Ethical Company.
