On April 6th 2017 the usual meeting for the Italian detergency market took place at the Federchimica auditorium.
Giorgio Dal Prato -Assocasa president – introduced the event and pointed out the decreasing trend: in the year ending February 2017, the sales of the “home care” (detergents and maintenance products), excluding the “disposable” marked in total a value of -2.7%. This also due to the particularly negative trend in the pest control industry, which recorded -13.7%, probably caused by the climatic conditions of the summer season 2016.
The event continued with the presentation of Vittorio Maglia – Federchimica – who underlined the difficult economic period the middle class is especially facing and which affects consumers’ behaviour.
Alessandra Coletta -Commercial director, Nielsen – entered into details of the different divisions, presenting a -1.9% for detergents.
In particular, the laundry marks -2%, dishes and dishwasher -1.3% -and other detergents 2.3%. In the laundry subdivision, as regards washing machines, the liquid detergents grew by 0.6%, while the powders detergents decreased by -7.4%, the hand laundry detergents by -14.3% and fine garments by -5.7%. The subdivision dishes, instead, indicates the dishwasher detergents at + 2.2% and those for dishes by hand at -4.2%.
Among other sectors, the washing adjuvants mark -1.2% and products for maintenance -2.5%. In this last division, deodorants have a negative growth (-3%), while the car care is stable with -0.5%.
In terms of store format, in the year ending in February 2017 only Drug Specialist indicated a growth of + 2.1%, a sign that many consumers are looking for a wide selection and quality combined with good opportunities for savings, while Discounts show a clear stabilization with + 0.1%.
A growth in sales of laundry detergents in Drug Specialist (+ 2.9%) and Discounts (+ 1.2%) can be seen, as well as for dishes detergents, whose sales in Drug Specialist mark +3.8
In year 2016, 2,500 new products were launched in the home field, which now represent 13% of the total referencing, contributing with 8% of last year turnover, equal to 202.5 million €.
In this context, the detergent industry always looks very carefully to the satisfaction of the needs of families in terms of hygiene and cleanliness of the house and continues the search for product innovation, to combat waste and promote sustainability, convenience and practicality. It is critical that each consumer is well informed and aware of the detergents use, given its key role in the economy, through the right dosage and the correct usage habits during the cleaning and maintenance of the house.
Christian Centonze- Eu Consumer and Shopper manager – Nielsen – underlined that the purchase power is in the hand of people older than 55, but indicated also how technology, especially internet, can impact this trend. Centonze compared the home care trend with the healthy food organic one. He discovered that people (especially young couple with kids) who are willing to buy healthy food are also keen on sustainable detergents products. The emergent food needs are guiding the growth of premium products. Products which indicated on the label two or more sustainable claims have gained positive growth and companies should take advantage of this.
Finally Luca Ruini – Vice President HSE&E – Barilla – explained the Barilla sustainable model and how today’s consumer is more well-informed and industry needs to take this into consideration. He talked about crop rotation, packaging and labelling system, palm oil etc. He gave good examples to the detergency industry and a model to follow.
Giorgio Dal Prato concluded the event by saying: “In this edition we wanted to review some analytical points, to go further into detail on areas such as the distribution channels and new references. Our industry has always tried to adapt to changes through the efforts of companies to meet the new needs of consumers, even with respect to the sustainability of products.” “It is therefore essential that our Association makes an effort to provide new dialogue and comparison tools between companies and the supply chain along with concrete activities to increase awareness, addressed at the consumers through our webmagazine www.pulitiefelici.it “.
