MAM
Freedom Healthy Cooking Oils distributes Seed Ganesha idols for an eco-friendly festival
Mumbai: Gemini Edibles and Fats India Ltd (GEF India), the marketers and refiners of Freedom Healthy Cooking Oils, as a part of their efforts to promote sustainable and eco-friendly practices, will distribute 10,000 Eco-friendly Seed Ganesha Boxes. People are becoming conscious of the vicissitudes of climate change and rapidly adopting sustainable religious celebrations by worshipping eco-friendly Ganesha, as the immersion of these idols has no debilitating effect on the water bodies. To encourage this Freedom Healthy Cooking Oils will distribute 7,000 Eco-friendly seed Ganesha boxes in Hyderabad & 3,000 Eco-friendly seed Ganesha boxes in Bangalore. Freedom Healthy Cooking Oils DGM marketing Chetan Pimpalkhute along with the team flagged off vehicles to distribute the Eco-friendly seed Ganesha to apartment complexes like Rainbow Vista (Phase 1&2), Malaysian Township, Aparna Sarovar, NCC Urban.
Madhapur, Swanlake Apartment, Moosapet, Ridge towers, IDPL, My Home Jewel, Indis one city KPHP, Satellite Township, Kompally, Satyanarayana enclave Chanda Nagar etc., in the city.
The culture of installing a Murthi of Lord Ganesha is a tradition and has been going on for years. The murthi are normally made of Clay or Plaster of Paris and also painted with commercial paints to give them a real-life look and charm. The problem is the materials and the finishing products going towards the preparation of the murthi are toxic and also not good for nature, as they may have a harmful effect on soil and water bodies. To keep the environmental impact of the Ganesh festival to a minimum, people have started having clay and soluble Ganesh Murthi with manure and plant-able seeds. Once immersed in the pot, the Ganesh idol grows into a plant, with the seeds available in the murthi. Freedom Healthy Cooking Oils – The Green Ganesha initiative serves as a testament to their conscious endeavour to mitigate environmental harm without compromising on the festivities.
Freedom Healthy Cooking Oils senior vice president, sales & marketing P Chandra Shekhara Reddy said, “It is a part of our tradition to celebrate the Ganesh festival by placing the Murthi of Lord Ganesha in our homes. To help people celebrate the festival with traditional fervour and protect the environment, Freedom Healthy Cooking Oils has decided to distribute 10,000 eco-friendly Seed, Ganesha Murthi. We have been distributing the eco-friendly seed Ganesha Murthi’s for five years. With the Green Ganesha initiative, we give the people the freedom to celebrate the festival with traditional fervour in a sustainable and eco-friendly way.”
Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
