When I set about creating our powder-based home care range and being the perfectionist that I am, I insisted on developing our own formulations even though it would have been so much cheaper (investment-wise) to get an off-the-shelf product from a contract manufacturer or from overseas.
Creating our products from the ground up meant that I could:
- Control the ingredients that went in
- Ensure it met my high expectations when it comes to cleaning performance (the OCD in me).
We are often get asked whether we make our products in Australia and why not have them in tablet format. This post gives some behind-the-scenes insight into our product development and operations.
Why Not Tablets?
We initially attempted to develop our products in tablet format. In fact, we spent almost 6 months working on a tablet formula only to ditch the idea in the end.
There were 2 deal breaker reasons why I wasn’t satisfied with what a tablet could do:
1. It did not deliver the cleaning performance I expected.
Let me explain. A tablet needed ingredients that bind everything together and disperse them when in contact with water. About 60% of the tablet comprises of ingredients that serve no other purpose other than making a tablet, a tablet. This means only 40% of the tablet were active cleaning agents. What we ended up with was a solution that was too weak/diluted to perform.
2. Natural fragrance was not an option
I like my cleaning products and hand wash to smell like I just walked out of a day spa scented with beautiful blends of essential oils. Unfortunately, we were unable to add essential oils to a tablet. The moisture would have caused the tablet to fall apart.
It was a frustrating process and at one point we ended up with a tablet that was the size of a ping pong ball because the chemist was trying to fit all I wanted in it! I wish I had a photo of it, it was quite ridiculously hilarious.
Meet Greenie The Queenie!
When we finally developed our range as powdered concentrates, we needed a way to blend and pack them into our compostable refill sachets. Outsourcing this part of it was not an option as we were not about to risk giving away the proprietary formula that we took almost 9 months to develop.
This meant we had to bite the bullet and invest a hefty sum to purchase a fully automated and customised machine. We’re proud to introduce you to our machine – Greenie The Queenie! We feed her daily with clean vegan goodness and in return, she quite literally spits out our planet-saving sachets at 800 units per hour!
Watch her go, it is quite mesmerising.