The Vosges-based company has given the international leader in professional hygiene solutions permission to produce 100% plant-based detergents based on its patented technology under license.
It took three decades of research and development before the SALVECO laboratory achieved its first major commercial success. This fall, the Vosges-based SME signed an agreement authorizing the U.S. group Diversey, which employs 8,500 people in 80 countries, to produce natural biocides under license in its European factories, and then in other regions of the world.
In 2014, the actual CEO of the Solvay group Ilham Kadri , at the time president of Diversey Care, had assigned the Saint-Dié-des-Vosges-based company to manufacture organic detergents. This small-scale production has continued and has then evolved into product co-development. The cash flow generated by the American royalties provides SALVECO with new industrial and commercial resources.
A subsidiary of SOCOMORE
The transaction is perfectly timed, as SALVECO joined forces, in January, with the Brittany-based SOCOMORE group, a specialist in industrial cleaning, which now holds 60% of its capital. The company, based in Vannes, France, is expected to achieve sales of 80 million euros by 2020, and has promised to preserve the autonomy of its Vosges subsidiary.
It has announced an investment of 6 million euros between now and 2024 to increase the surface area of the Saint-Dié plant from 3,500 to 6,000 square meters, to strengthen research and development and to fully exploit the potential of plant chemistry. The cumulative turnover of biosourced disinfectants will reach 20 million euros in 2020 and represents 40 employees in the Vosges, where five positions have been created since the beginning of the year.
Pediatric disinfection
“Our products meet European regulations and French standards, but above all they meet the aspirations of consumers, who noted during the health crisis that chemical disinfectants caused lesions,” recalls Stephan Auberger, founder and CEO of SALVECO.
The company has definitively withdrawn from mass distribution and offers its products to individuals through home sales networks. It is now refocusing on contract manufacturing for distributors of hygiene products in the professional and medical sectors. SALVECO has high hopes for its pediatric disinfection solution, authorized on the European market for babies from the age of three months.
