Aussie firm aims to clean up global giants in the laundry game

Gold Coast-based OzKleen has launched a direct-to-consumer laundry liquid delivery service that it says undercuts the multinationals by as much as $9 a litre.

OzKleen chief executive Mark Quinn at the company’s factory.

Forget solar panels, semiconductors and batteries – apparently it’s cheap Australian-made laundry detergent that consumers are crying out for during this cost-of-living crisis.

Cash-strapped householders are spending as much as $1000 a year on laundry detergent and most of that flows into the coffers of multinational consumer goods companies.

The laundry cash splash has prompted the launch of a direct-to-consumer model by Gold Coast-based OzKleen which offers what it claims is a cheaper option to the foreign giants.

OzKleen, the maker of the Shower Power brand, has launched the Dollar Laundry Club which home delivers laundry liquid and powder to consumers Australia-wide for as little as $3.33 a litre. OzKleen says that compares with $12.22 a litre for major foreign brands.

OzKleen chief executive Mark Quinn said that with households spending between $700 and $1000 on laundry liquid each year, people were trying to save every cent.

“Times are tough right now for families with inflation and higher interest rates,” Mr Quinn said. “Our cost of living is going up and strangling a lot of people.

“Our aim is to provide a direct-to-consumer cost-effective solution to probably the most expensive part of household cleaning – laundry liquid.”

Founded in 1995, OzKleen is not new to direct-to-consumer selling and initially operated from a single shop in Beenleigh, where it sold its Shower Power directly to the public.

Its products are now stocked in all major supermarkets as well as exported to countries in Asia and Europe. Mr Quinn said tough economic times were driving a move by customers to cheaper generic cleaning products and away from branded products.

“There was an uptick during Covid for niche products but that has since been returning to normal,” he said.

“It is hard to compete against the big multinational brands, particularly manufacturing in Australia.”

OzKleen chief Mark Quinn. Picture: Adam Head

According to IBISWorld, the $2.7bn soap and cleaning manufacturing sector in Australia

is dominated by subsidiaries of large-scale multinational organisations, which are entrenched in the marketplace with well-known brand names.

Mr Quinn said that by going direct to consumers, a small company like OzKleen could market its products in a more cost-effective way and not have to rely on a network of bricks-and-mortar stores. OzKleen has been taking on multinational household cleaning brands such as Jif and Ajax in the supermarket aisles for more than three decades, growing to become a multimillion-dollar operation that sells millions of bottles of household cleaning products in Australia, China, the United Kingdom, the Middle East and South Korea.

In the past it has beaten 17 top international brands, including Dettol, Domestos, Jif and Ajax, to achieve a five-star rating for overall customer satisfaction in surveys conducted by Canstar Blue. The brand was formed when the Quinn and Heron families took over a struggling chemical company in the mid-1990s aiming to make household cleaning products that might not have been the cheapest but which they claimed used the best ingredients.

With very little advertising, the Shower Power product soon attracted the attention of local customers as well as supermarket giants Coles and Woolworths. The company employs 30 people at its Ormeau factory, which can fill 40,000 bottles a day.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, OzKleen developed an antiviral surface cleaner that decreased the survival time of the virus on surfaces.

OzKleen saw sales more than double after the pandemic started in 2020, forcing it to put on an extra shift and operate 16 hours a day.