Trade Fair News


AquAid-Printlife helps Third World


AMONG THE MORE unusual stands at this year’s Bookmakers’ Trade Fair was that occupied by AquAid- Printlife. Formed in 1992, AquAid is


an award winning water cooler company and is still run by its founders, the Searle family. It supplies 80,000 water coolers nationwide and has service centres up and down the country. In 2000 AquAid began


working with a charity called Pump Aid. With every mains fed water cooler installed, AquAid donated money for an elephant pump to be installed. Designed by Pump Aid,


them back to retail customers to use. The major benefit for a customer is that we’re able to offer them the same print quality, the same page yields, but at a substantially reduced price. Where we differ from some other remanufacturers is that we don’t simply refill the cartridge and hope it will see through another lifecycle. Replacing critical components ensures we can guarantee it will. “The


an elephant pump, so called because of its strength, shape and reliability, is made of rope, a plastic pipe, some rubber washers, and a winding wheel. It can lift water from depths of 50 metres and can produce 1 litre of water per second. Since 2000, AquAid and


its sister company Printlife have donated over £6 million to charity from the sale of its products. Printlife’s operations manager


industry worldwide has been around for about 20 years and is a £500 million industry now. We’re able to reproduce good quality cartridges and make customers good savings. “A typical Lexmark colour


cartridge would be retailing at around £100, depending on where you buy it, but a similar cartridge from us would be in the region of £60. “We have our own


remanufacturing


Dave Fremel of AquAid Printlife. AquAid


Picture:Mary Pitt


has recently established an organization called The Africa Trust, which works to bring sustainable solutions to poverty in Africa. These include establishing supplies of clean productive water and decent sanitation. Printlife is dedicated to


Franchising


Jenningsbet/Better group,” says Dave. “They’ve been of tremendous benefit to us and we’ve obviously been of benefit to them in terms of cost savings. Having one such large customer within the sector, we’d like to promote ourselves to other bookmakers.” Dave himself is no stranger to


working with The Africa Trust and estimate that every cartridge they provide raises enough money to supply ten people with fresh drinking water for the rest of their lives. Says Dave: “The Africa


Dave Fremel explained: “AquAid is essentially a family run business; it always has been and it always will be. We’ve made significant donations to third world water projects, which obviously, given the water cooler industry sector we are working in, is very appropriate “We were looking for another


business that we could operate and after investigation we found the toner industry and thought that would be a good sector for us given our business customer base.” Hence the formation of


Printlife. It is widely acknowledged


that printer manufacturers make their money not through the sale of actual printers but rather through the sales of the expensive cartridges that the printers use. Says Dave: “We take used manufacturer’s


original


cartridges, we completely strip them down and replace all the important parts with new components and then sell


visit www.bosmag.co.uk


manufacturing factory in Peterborough and we test the product thoroughly against the original manufacturer’s cartridge to make sure that the quality and the page yields that people get from the cartridge are the comparable if not better. “All products we supply have


a 100 per cent money back guarantee – in the unlikely event that anything goes wrong with the cartridge, we simply replace it free of charge.” Printlife can remanufacture


the profession. “I’ve had a history of


Trust was launched because we found that aid these days tends to go into very specific projects, many of which are not really sustainable. What we want to do is be able to provide funds whereby, once a project goes into place, it is sustainable and is able to lift people out of poverty. “Every time you order one


working with both on-course bookmakers and smaller off- course bookmakers,” he says. “I’ve worked in the shops, worked as a clerk on-course, hands-on experience of the betting industry. “I feel that I understand this


of our products, 5 per cent of the revenue is used to provide sustainable solutions to poverty. “Through Printlife we’re


all the leading brand cartridges, such as Canon, Samsung, Lexmark and Hewlett Packard. “Through the AquAid


network we have service centres nationwide,” says Dave. “We can provide a recycling bin and collect it every fortnight. It’s free of charge. We’ll pick up the used cartridges, which prevents waste going to landfill, thus reducing the carbon footprint and saving money on waste disposal.” What makes the operation


also supporting an organisation called TBN (Transformational Business Network).TBN trains people to be entrepreneurs. It provides them with a small loan in order to get a business up and running, with the idea that every business that starts up will employ two or three people who will turn out to be supporting entire families. “It’s an extension of what


particularly laudable, however, is that every cartridge they collect not only saves the customer money and its impact on the environment, it also helps reduce poverty in the Third World.


we’ve done with AquAid which has, provided four million people with a clean supply of drinking water through the PumpAid project, and we’re obviously keen to expand on that via The Africa Trust.” Printlife are also keen to expand their services within the bookmaking sector, and they already have one large customer on board. “We’re working with the


particular industry; I understand it’s about money, and if you’re spending sums, as some of the groups are, of £100,000 a year, you’re much better off spending £60,000, because the £40,000 that you save goes direct to your bottom line. If you are printing your sports coupons in shop and are using original manufacturer cartridges then I know we can make you a significant saving. “It should be a win-win situation for everybody: reduced carbon footprint, because so many toning cartridges, when they’re finished with, end up in landfill. With us remanufacturing them and reusing the majority of the casing, that isn’t going to be landfill so there are obvious green benefits. “There’s also the cost saving


benefit and obviously there are the donations we make to PumpAid and The Africa Trust in order to help people less fortunate than ourselves.”n


For further information please contact Dave Fremel Tel: 01733 890050


Email: printlifeaccounts@ aquaid.co.uk www.printlife.co.uk


BOS Magazine November/December 2011 27


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