VGAM Biome, a Lanaudière company specializing in minimalist skin care, will release a new innovative and eco-friendly product in a few months. A concrete example of sustainable development that the MRC des Moulins wants to put forward in its economic strategy. Overview.
Mireille Vega, founder of VGAME Biome, is an environmentalist at heart. Releasing a new product is no easy feat for this chemist and doctor of biotechnology. Indeed, the one who advocates a minimalist approach to skin care makes it a point not to add anything superfluous to its offer. She also says she has already designed a cream that she never launched, because it did not fit into the brand’s ecosystem. “I didn’t like having another cream,” reveals the one who instead offers an adaptable “one-step treatment.”
It is after receiving several requests from customers that the entrepreneur will launch “Plus” in a few months, a new product which will be both a lip balm and a hair moisturizer. “It’s a product that will only be fatty,” emphasizes Ms. Vega. Like the three other VGAME Biome products, the latter will be made in Quebec from 100% natural ingredients, most local, without animal cruelty, and packaged in an aluminum container, an infinitely recyclable material. “The packaging is designed to be as environmentally friendly as possible,” emphasizes the founder.
Since July 2021, Mireille Vega has been incubated at InnoHub La Centrale, the business incubator of the MRC des Moulins. “It’s an ecosystem that allows you to network, to learn, to meet the right people, to have access to space. I also have a stock room there,” explains the entrepreneur. The latter knocked on InnoHub’s door to support it in the development of VGAME Biome. “There was a lot of support that helped me position the brand marketing-wise,” she says. A beneficiary of the Innovation Support Fund, the entrepreneur now wants to develop new markets and seek out investors.
Last March, the MRC des Moulins received a grant of 3.3 million to help businesses face sustainable development challenges. The Sustainable Innovation: From Incubation to Business Implementation project will allow InnoHub La Centrale to offer a collaborative manufacturing workshop in partnership with the Les Moulins Vocational Training Center and the INÉDI College Center for Technology Transfer from Cégep de Lanaudière in Terrebonne. “This is a new agreement that will be put into motion in the coming months,” explains Hammadi Sahli, project manager at InnoHub La Centrale.
The business incubator and accelerator therefore adds a sustainable development component to its offer and focuses in particular on two aspects: the circular economy and the ecological transition. “As part of the new program, we are thinking of immediately offering awareness of ecodesign, therefore getting companies – before even starting to think about developing a product or technology – getting them to design with an ecological eye », explains Mr. Sahli.
Among the partnerships that are in the process of being finalized, there is that with a secondary vocational training center equipped with equipment to transform wood and that with a College Center for Technology Transfer (CCTT) which has a laboratory of virtual reality that can be used in eco-design mode, therefore to develop products virtually before starting to do it physically and consuming raw materials. “The idea is to allow companies that are incubated or accelerated with us to benefit from these infrastructures, hence the collaborative side,” explains Mr. Sahli.