Norwex posted sales of $90 million last year, the product of 11 consecutive years of more than 100 per cent growth, and its goal is to pull in $200 million in two years and $1 billion in eight or nine years.
To accommodate the growth, Norwex recently began work on a $5.2 million expansion to grow its current office and warehouse facilities from 10,000 square feet to 33,000 square feet, according to Scott Johnston, the company's COO.
Low-cost housing
The local housing market is picking up the good vibrations. House prices are expected to rise by 5 to 7 per cent this year following a couple of years of double-digit growth, according to Kathy Stokotelny, broker/owner with Action Realty Ltd., said the market was driven in 2008 and 2009 by people returning to the province from more expensive Alberta.
A typical house in Dauphin - a three-bedroom, 1,100-square-foot bungalow with a single attached garage - sells for about $150,000, Stokotelny said, or about half the price of either Calgary or Edmonton. Larger new houses in Dauphin can top $300,000.
Dauphin officials are confident the city's hosting of the 2010 RBC Cup Junior A National Hockey Championships earlier this year will help attract similar events and much-needed tourist dollars in the near future. The championship generated $3.1 million in Manitoba, with more than two-thirds of that occurring in Dauphin.
It hasn't been all days of wine and roses, however. Torrential rains this spring flooded the fields of many area farmers, causing widespread damage and loss of crops.
A two-week stretch of way-above-average temperatures in late September and early October - it was widely referred to as the "million-dollar forecast" - helped many farmers clear their fields and salvage at least part of the season.
"We usually feel the effect after the fact," van Luijn said. "Farming is a multi-year strategy. There are more big farms that operate their businesses differently than the old family farm. They might have been more prepared for a bad year."
from Western Investor, November 2010
