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Sustainability. It’s the newest buzzword on the lips of Americans, and it’s being used everywhere in advertisements for car manufacturers, fuel companies, computer and electronics manufacturers, and furniture stores. But what actually is sustainability and how can you, as a jan/san distributor, contribute to a sustainable environment?
Sustainability is defined as using a resource at the same rate at which it can replenish itself. Chemical manufacturers and formulators have recently discovered a wealth of applications where sustainable resources, such as soybeans, corn and even parsley, can be used as replacement solvents in cleaners and degreasers.
Bio-based cleaners can be as effective and competitively priced as their conventional chemical counterparts, but with added bonuses: They lower VOC levels, contain less toxic ingredients, improve worker safety and help support America’s agricultural industry.
Understanding the advantages and clearing up the confusion surrounding bio-based products is a step in the right direction toward successfully selling these products.
THE BIO-BASED ADVANTAGE
In order to do business in today’s competitive climate, standing out from the crowd is essential to survival. One of the biggest advantages of offering bio-based cleaners is that it will distinguish your company from the competition. Paul Coty, marketing manager for Soy Technologies, explains how. “These days, distributors are battling for the accounts with fixed budgets, such as schools, hospitals and long-term care facilities because we’re seeing big reductions in the hospitality sector,” says Coty. “As restaurants and hotels lose business, fewer floors need to be washed, fewer restrooms cleaned and fewer beds made, but institutions are not losing business or decreasing their budgets, so every distributor is after those accounts.”
Due to steep competition, the accounts with fixed budgets are going to look for distributors with specialty products that perform well and are competitively priced.
Coty elaborates, “There’s less business, there are fewer dollars to be spent, and there are many more hands chasing those dollars, so the distributors that are looking forward and still aggressively pursuing new technologies and products may actually gain business in this downturn.”
