Ecover boss reflects on move to the mainstream

Michael Bremans is in a reflective mood. Like many executives at green businesses, the boss of Ecover has spent much of the past year mulling the old adage that "all things are relative".

"Over the past few years we saw such rapid growth that you go below 10 per cent and you start to think you are doing badly, but its still good growth," he muses, noting that the Cassandras who predicted that green consumer products, such as Ecover's high-profile, ecologically-friendly cleaning products, would be the first victims of the recession have been wide of the mark.

The company expects that the 20 per cent sales growth it has experienced in the UK market in recent years will drop back to nearer four-five per cent this year. But, crucially for Bremans, the company is still growing.

"We are a premium brand so we can understand that in a recession some customers will turn away, but we have not seen a real decline and it is not the kind of slowdown that is lasting," he says, adding that markets such as Germany and Belgium are continuing to record rapid growth.

Ecover's robust performance in the face of the worst recession in the past 50 years provides further evidence that green consumer products have now completed their long journey into the mainstream. But despite the company's position as one of the most recognisable green brands on supermarket shelves, Bremans is wary of the mainstream tag and is fully aware that the multinationals that dominate the cleaning products sector are unlikely to embrace higher environmental standards without a clear signal that customers are willing to pay for it.

"Green products are moving into the mainstream, but there are still a lot of changes that need to take place," says Bremans. "The consumer needs to evolve and we all need to realise that a product has a value, a cost and a price, and that some of the cheap prices we have now are not sustainable in the long term – that's a difficult story to tell."

Sadly, however, for those who hope to see sustainable consumer products become the norm, Bremans is adamant that it is a story that will have to be told.

"Our prices will come down a little as we enjoy more economies of scale, but if you are continuously investing in identifying and using more sustainable raw materials than there will always be a price premium over the established ingredients," he says.

Consumers may even have to re-evaluate their understanding of what makes a good product and turn their noses up at the kind of chemically engineered world we have become used to. Bremans points out that the petro-chemical based fragrances that have become the norm in many of our cleaning products are not only cheaper than the ecological alternatives used by Ecover they are, in some senses, better.

"The kind of engineered fragrances people are used to simply do not exist in nature, they are stronger scents than anything you can produce naturally," he notes. "The consumer will have to redefine what they regard as good value and realise that if they want good value they have to pay for it."

It all sounds dangerously like the austerity measures that many environmentalists have spent the past few years trying to downplay. However, Bremans is confident that not only is there an appetite for more sustainable products, there are also the technologies available to deliver green products that do not compromise on quality.

He points to a breakthrough achieved by Ecover, which he happily admits no consumer is unlikely to notice, but which could yet have major implications for the wider cleaning products sector.

Ecover has always replaced petrochemicals with plant-based alternatives in its products, but has been reliant on the same chemical based manufacturing processes used by many conventional cleaners. However, the company announced earlier this month that it has filed a patent for what it claims is the world's first "Eco-Surfactant", a version of the surfactant's that are used in most household cleaning products that has removed petrochemicals from the entire production process, replacing conventional techniques with a yeast-based fermentation process.

"Most consumers won't know anything has changed," says Bremans, explaining that the company is now working to roll the process out across its product lines. "But it is a big step forward from an environmental point of view."

What consumers are more likely to notice is Bremans' plan to extend the Ecover brand's reach into the highly-competitive personal care market. More Ecover shampoos, shower gels, soaps and the like are all on the cards, but the company plans to stop short of emulating the Body Shop and moving into cosmetics.

Bremans is a little more circumspect about the prospects of Ecover emulating the Body Shop in another way and eventually selling out to one of its larger rivals, but he is adamant that a takeover is currently the last thing on the company's mind, despite frequent expressions of interest from interested parties.

"You can't totally exclude anything," he says, a little warily. "But we still see a huge difference between our approach and that of, say, a Procter & Gamble. There would need to be a lot of convergence and we would need to see a lot more environmental awareness from bigger companies if we were to ever consider a marriage."