The American Cleaning Institute held its virtual industry convention last week and it featured an array of sessions on the pandemic, regulations, consumer attitudes and more.

Nathan Sell of ACI moderated a session entitled “The Future of Cleaning Future of Cleaning: What Cleaning May Look Like in the Post-Pandemic Era,” which featured Rachel Watson-Clark, director of research development, cleaning innovation and sustainability, The Clorox Company, and Rui Zhang, head of marketing home care and I&I, Care Chemicals, North America, at BASF Corporation.

In the session, the panel discussed the significant changes the pandemic brought to the cleaning products industry—and addressed whether or not any would remain as the US and world slowly move into a post-pandemic world.

“Twenty-twenty was a watershed year. It actually changed consumers' behavior,” noted Watson-Clark of Clorox. 

According to the Clorox executive, in the initial days of the COVID-19 shutdowns, consumers adopted a greatly increased workload with killing germs rising up as the most important job—on top of navigating other tasks like caring for family, managing remote schooling and working from home.

“Consumers added new daily tasks to protect their families—chores you might have done once a year became daily or even twice daily tasks. Consumers did things they never did before,” said Watson-Clark, pointing to consumers who were wiping down their groceries, washing clothes as soon as they walked in the door and installing hand sanitizers stations inside their own homes.
         
In this atmosphere, legacy brands—Clorox included—were in demand. 

“Any product that said anything about sanitizing and disinfecting, they bought it,” Watson-Clark said.

Unfortunately, there were issues of price gouging and counterfeit products, and supply chain too.

“The pandemic didn’t mean that for the first time there was a fake website. What changed with the phenomenal increase in fake websites, knock off products and misinformation. It was everywhere. It turned into a full time job to protect the consumer,” Watson-Clark, calling Clorox’s efforts to tamp down bogus websites a “herculean” task. 

According to Zhang of BASF, being thrust into e-commerce was a jarring experience for many, but it’s a behavior that’s likely to remain even as the pandemic subsides.

Omni-channel will be the retail future of cleaning products, she insisted.

Prior to the pandemic, consumers were very much interested in greener products,  but the role of cleaning products shifted as a result of the pandemic; they are viewed as essential goods. 

“During the pandemic we observed the chemophobia reversal,” said Zhang. While this trend is likely to be mitigated somewhat moving forward, efficacy and sustainability will remain priorities. 

“Consumers will continue to be interested in simple products with no compromises,” she said.

All stakeholders will need to work together to meet expectations  that will center of safety, efficacy and sustainability.

According to Zhang, innovation must drive the category moving forward. As cleaning standards will remain high, products that can provide a “deep and sensorial clean” will be important. In addition, she said on-the-go products will capture attention. 

“Innovation is all about finding those solutions that are necessary, not those that are a compromise that takes everything down, but the synergy that takes everything up,” said Watson-Clark. “The solutions that make everything better across the board—that should be our goal as innovators in cleaning.”

For more on the ACI virtual convention, read the March issue of Happi.