Bleach in Germany

PROSPECTS

Health and wellness fears impede bleach’s growth in 2019

The demand for chlorine-based bleach continues to decline in Germany due to consumer caution and warnings about the toxicity of traditional bleach products. Germans consider bleach to be extremely harmful to surfaces and therefore avoid buying it unless it is extremely necessary or becomes a last resort when other cleaners leave a surface unclean.

Surface cleaners obstruct growth for bleach

With Germans looking for natural solutions to clean their homes and with bleach being considered a solution of last resort, sales of bleach are expected to continue declining in the forecast period. Therefore, companies such as Henkel, Unilever and Procter & Gamble are not investing further in bleach, but instead focusing on other home care products such as surface care where they have already launched eco-friendly versions of their cleaning products.

Bleach set to be mostly purchased online

With bleach sales declining every year due to Germans looking for more natural products to clean their households, manufacturers have been forced to adjust not only their products and branding message but also how and where they sell their products. Colgate-Palmolive GmbH, for example, has reduced the presence of its bleach brand, Dan Klorix, from shelves and is selling it mostly online, leaving the allocated shelf space for other products that are sold more in stores, such as surface cleaners, liquid fabric softeners or multi-purpose cleaners.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

Colgate-Palmolive leads bleach with Dan Klorix

Dan Klorix from Colgate-Palmolive GmbH remained the leading bleach brand in Germany in 2019. However, as bleach sales are steeply declining, the company has been marketing its brand as a hygiene cleaner rather than as purely bleach.

Leading brands invest in other categories rather than bleach

As bleach sees sales sink, leading players such as Colgate-Palmolive, Henkel and Unilever are preferring to invest in other home care categories such as surface care or toilet care. These companies will still own brands within bleach, namely Bref (Henkel), Dan Klorix (Colgate-Palmolive) and Domestos (Unilever).

Private label gains territory in bleach

With big companies focusing more on other categories rather than bleach, private label ranges such as Zekol from Aldi Einkauf GmbH & Co oHG and Denkmit from dm-Drogerie Markt GmbH & Co KG dm have slowly gained value share. Many consumers are willing to purchase less expensive private label products.

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