More than soap and paper towels
Janitorial markets have expanded far beyond clean kitchens and bathrooms
By Joe Nowlan, Associate Editor -- Industrial Distribution, 10/1/2005
When reflecting on the overall janitorial industry, the usual terms and categories are bound to come up—paper towels; floor waxers; bio-enhancers; microbes; hydrocarbons.
If your response to those last three terms is "Huh?" you're not alone. Customers as well as distributors and manufacturers of janitorial-related products also have had to educate themselves in these areas. Environmental regulations and technical developments have combined to create a demand for materials beyond hand soap.
Distributors like John Paparone have seen these developments bring something besides more technical terminology—more customers.
"Distributors are looking for additional products that fit their markets," says Paparone, president of Environmental Solution, Inc., in Wake Forest, N.C. He cites companies such as EnviroLogic, based in Wyncote, Pa., among the leading suppliers of these newly developed products, many of which represent what Paparone calls "new cross-selling opportunities. [They are] a nice add-on to your existing customer base, and allow us to cross sell without having to go look for a new market. We can take on a new product that the customer already has a need for."
Products that promote "bio-remediation" best exemplify some of the new cross-selling opportunities. Paparone explains bio-remediation by suggesting that, if you spill a can of oil onto the backyard grass, "Mother Nature will send microbes into that oil and digest the hydrocarbons...and in 15–20 years, that oil spot will have gone away," he says.
Newly developed products he is distributing these days do the same thing, "but in a matter of weeks. That's bio-remediation. Once you wake up the microbes with water, they hit the hydrocarbons, they 'colonize,' and it's like a bunch of 'Pacmen' in there," as the oil spill is rapidly eliminated.
Obviously, nobody is planning on pouring out a can of oil on their backyard, but toxic spills occur in various areas of industry. Thus, the market for this sort of product includes "anybody who works with any kind of a hydrocarbon, such as a machine shop, aircraft, truck fleets...any industrial application. Actually, anyone who is going to use oil of any sort," Paparone says.
Paul Offutt, vice president of sales at Unger Enterprises of Bridgeport, Conn., has seen the same scenarios. Unger is a manufacturer of cleaning and janitorial products.
"The industry is taking shape and addressing the needs of the end user more so than in the past," he says. "We are seeing a bigger and bigger surge of these end users that want to see, and be sold, these types of items."
Offutt shares Paparone's enthusiasm for these products, explaining that "overall, the industry is doing fairly well. We see growth."
Being able to clean up oil and other toxic spills faster and more efficiently has been profitable. Yet ironically, the very price of that oil is something that worries Offutt, as it does in most industries these days.
"I'm a bit concerned with fuel and the raw materials associated with petroleum-based products," Offutt says. "My hope is we see fuel come down. But if it continues to rise, we could see a slight downturn that would hurt us and eat up some of the growth we've attained to this point."
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