Italy Dishes Up Cleaners
Esselunga offers environment friendly concentrated detergent for dishes based on vegetable raw materials, basic Esselunga detergents “with lemon”, and basic Esselunga sponges for cleaning pans.
Coop Italia’s Coop range cleaning products seem to be the most advanced in terms of choice, like this Coop cream steal cleaner, but environment friendly ecological products can be found in the Vivi Verde (“live green”) range, like this artic fresh floor detergent.
Private label cleaning products in the Italian retail market include a range of products for washing dishes and clothes and cleaning surfaces.
The private label cleaning products ranges in the Italian retail market are found to be extended and complete. The retailers PLI visited are Coop Italia, Conad, Pam-Panorama and Esselunga, i.e. the “really Italian” retailers, to get an authentic overview about Italian household cleaning products.
All four retailers carry a range of cleaning products for the cleaning of floors/surfaces, the washing of dishes by hand and by dishwashing machine, as well as for the washing of clothes. Also, accessories such as sponges, wipes and special dust-catching towels are present in the private label ranges of all four retailers.
Coop Italia
Coop Italia features a basic cleaning products range under the normal Coop brand and also a comprehensive range of environment friendly/ecological cleaning products.
Generally, Coop Italia’s private label range is characterized by a distinctive and very clear design of the labelling: presently, there are 11 Coop Italia private label ranges, each of them for a specific product area.
The product areas are precisely oriented to take care about the growing sensibility regarding environment and fair trade topics; at the same time, these are communicated strongly and constantly to the consumers, having also an educational effect.
The 11 Coop Italia private label ranges are: Coop (the basic range of food and non food products crossing all categories), Bene-Si, Senza Glutine and Essere (ranges oriented to healthy products), Fior Fiore (regional Italian gourmet food), Crescendo (baby products), Club 4-10 (toddler products), Solidal (fair trade products, also organic), as well as Bio-Logici (organic food products) and Eco-Logici (non food ecological products).
The ranges Bio-Logici and Eco-Logici have been grouped under an umbrella brand for a comprehensive environment friendly ecological range called Vivi Verde (“live green”).
Among the cleaning products private label ranges checked, PLI states the Coop range to be the most advanced in terms of choice.
More precisely, the policy is to not to offer only “me too” products when compared to the benchmarks, but to be a trailer for innovative and environment-friendly products, showing competence and an educational ambition in their private label range. We argue that the long-term policy for the Coop Italia private label range is to become a benchmark by itself.
The benchmarks in Italy for the cleaning products are for example the deterging products “Mastro Lindo” (Procter & Gamble) for the cleaning of floors & surfaces, “Lysoform” (Germo Spa), a range of cleaning liquids to be used to eliminate germs and bacteria from the surfaces in the home, “Ajax” (Colgate Palmolive), “ACE” candeggina (Procter & Gamble), i.e. a chloral-based detergent.
The benchmarks in the product categories sponges, dust-wipers and hand shoes are Vileda, Scotch Brite, Spontex and Swiffer, the latter having introduced an advanced range of dust-catching one-way microfiber products.
The examined retailers have all inserted in their private label range a one-way microfiber dust-catcher, however, this is a mono-product and the private label ranges, for now, have not extended to the further innovative dust-catching formats with the Swiffer benchmark.
Esselunga
Esselunga’s private label range of cleaning products has a deep basic range for the cleaning and care of all kinds of surfaces, including the detergents for the hygiene of the bathroom and the kitchen.
Also Esselunga has environment friendly and ecological cleaning products in its private label range, extended to all the cleaning categories, such as for example tabs with lemon for the dishwashing machine (22 tabs = Euro 2,29) and a transparent concentrated detergent for dishes based on vegetable raw materials, with no colorants and filled in a flacon made with 50% recycled materials (1 lt = 1,40 Euro).
The design of the Esselunga private label products is mainly oriented to the design and the colors of the relative benchmark products.
The dark blue Pam-Panorama logo clearly distinguishes the whole private label range on retailer’s shelves.
Conrad’s creamy lemon detergent cleans fatty dishes and its stain remover gel is all-purpose.
For example, the detergent for glass surfaces is packed in a clear transparent plastic bottle with natural spraying mechanism (no gas), the liquid is blue and the sticker is white/clear with the writings in red and blue, just like the benchmark “Ajax”. The Esselunga branded spray costs Euro 1,19 / 750 ml, the benchmark product costing Euro 2,19. Esselunga offers also the same product in a recharge bottle at 0,98 Euro / 750 ml with a regard of saving costs and to re-use the bottles with the spraying mechanism.
The basic Esselunga detergents for floors and general surfaces are filled in white flacons with sticker and available in the variations “with lemon” and “classic” at 0,98 Euro for 1 lt.
Esselunga also features a special detergent for parquet floors which is a turquoise liquid filled in a transparent clear plastic bottle, still at Euro 0,98/1lt. Esselunga strong detergent for kitchen and bathroom in flacons with natural (no gas) spraying mechanism is offered at a very competitive pricing, i.e. at Euro 0,42 / 750 ml.
The Esselunga branded hand shoes are available in gum with an inlet of cotton against allergies, as well as in the simple gum version, dermatologically tested (both at Euro 1,19 for one pair of hand shoes).
The Esselunga store checked by PLI is a hyperstore where the household products can be bought both in the regular supermarket area, as well as in a dedicated in-house store for non-food and cleaning products, clothing, paper products, personal care products, as well as small electric products for the household such as bread roasters, ironing tools, microwave ovens and similar.
Conad
On the shelves of the Conad supermarket, PLI found a complete range of the necessary cleaning products for the house, kitchen, bathroom, and dishes, as well as for clothes.
During store visits, no environment-friendly or ecological products in that product category under Conad private label were found.
As far as the design and the colors of the packaging of the liquids/detergents are concerned, these are designed with regard to the relative benchmark products.
For example, the detergent for glass is blue and it is filled in a clear transparent bottle with a natural (no gas) spraying mechanism, like the benchmark; the Conad branded glass detergent costs Euro 1,25/500 ml, which is clearly more expensive than the equivalent Esselunga product.
Generally, the Conad private label cleaning products range is offered at a price level which appears to be positioned on a lightly higher price level than the equivalent Esselunga products.
Some of the detergent categories of the Conad private label range are very extended, such as for example the dishwashing liquids range carrying five different variations:
Classico (the basic one), Limone (lemon) to clean fatty dishes, Bicarbonato (bicarbonate) for brilliant dishes, Acidi di Frutta (fruit acids) for particularly fatty dishes, Aceto (vinegar) to eliminate the smell.
All the dish detergents are dermatologically tested and filled in transparent satinated flacons of 1 lt and the liquids have different colors; cost point = Euro 1,19/lt. In the store checked by PLI, this specific range was placed at the height of the eyes and it covered about 3 meters shelf space. The Conad dish washing range is completed by a concentrated gel in a small transparent flacon at a price of Euro 1,10/50 ml.
A similar situation is found in the category of Conad detergents for floors, ceramic walls and similar surfaces, where PLI found three varieties, all filled in transparent satinated flacons with colorful liquids at a price of Euro 1,20 / lt., more precisely: “Brezza marina” (sea wind) – dark blue liquid; “Limone” (lemon) – yellow liquid; “Bouquet Fiorito” (flower bouquet) – rosé liquid. Also this specific range is positioned on eye’s height and occupies about three meters of shelf space.
Pam
The dark blue Pam-Panorama logo clearly distinguishes the whole private label range on retailer’s shelves.
The Pam group is a privately owned group operating with 23 hypermarkets “Panorama” in the northern and central part of Italy, as well as with 110 supermarkets “Pam”, 240 superette markets “Pam Franchising”, 270 hard discount markets “IN’s Mercato”, 40 restaurants “Cibis” and 400 airport shops “the Nuance group”.
Pam-Panorama, as well, has a complete basic range of household cleaning products.
The Pam-Panorama logo is a square dark blue field with the green Pam logo and the product name written in white letters. This dark blue square logo clearly distinguishes the whole private label range on the Pam-Panorama shelves.
The formats of the detergent’s containers (flacons, bottles, boxes) as well as the colors of the detergents are similar to their benchmark equivalents.
PLI did not find Pam-Panorama cleaning products with ecological/environment friendly certification on the shelves ofthe stores checked. The price level of the products is similar to the pricing found in the Conad range.
The private label ranges in the household cleaning products are all found to be well equipped. Coop Italia and Esselunga are retailers with a certain innovation and trend-capturing private label range in this category, offering environment friendly/ecologically certified cleaning products.
Regarding the cleaning accessories such as sponges, dust-wipers etc. all four retailers tend to offer “me-too” products, leaving the biggest part of the shelves for this kind of items to the benchmarks.
This product category of cleaning accessories offers a potential for an extension of the retailer’s private label ranges also with regard to the trends of easy-to-handle microfiber products, environment friendly products with low-impact materials and packagings made from recycled materials.
