Laundry Detergent Development Case Study
High-Performance Naturally Derived Laundry Liquid Development
A global detergent company approached d-labs after spending more than two years attempting to develop a naturally derived laundry liquid capable of matching the performance of an established market-leading product.
d-labs developed and optimised an enzymatic laundry liquid that achieved the required benchmark performance while remaining within the client’s target formulation cost.
Client
Global detergent company
Challenge
Match market-leading performance
Development Time
Approximately 8–9 months
Outcome
Performance target achieved within target cost
The Challenge
Matching market-leading performance within a demanding natural-positioning brief
The client had identified an important gap in its laundry portfolio and wanted to develop a naturally derived laundry liquid capable of delivering performance equivalent to an established market-leading product.
The challenge was not simply to create a formulation that met the desired ingredient-positioning requirements. It also needed to achieve the required cleaning performance while remaining within a defined commercial cost target.
Before engaging d-labs, the client’s global development team had worked on the project for approximately two years without reaching the required combination of performance and cost.
The technical challenge was balancing ingredient constraints, cleaning performance and commercial cost without compromising the intended product proposition.
What d-labs Did
A performance-led formulation development process
d-labs took responsibility for progressing the project from the existing development challenge through to a commercially viable formulation, using comparative performance testing to guide formulation decisions throughout the process.
1. Reviewed the development brief
Clarified the required ingredient positioning, benchmark performance target, formulation cost and other commercial constraints.
2. Developed formulation pathways
Created and screened formulation approaches capable of meeting the natural-positioning requirements while maintaining the cleaning performance needed to compete with the benchmark.
3. Tested and optimised performance
Prototype formulations were evaluated against the target market product, allowing formulation changes to be guided by measured cleaning performance rather than chemistry alone.
4. Refined for commercial viability
The formulation was progressively optimised to balance cleaning performance, ingredient requirements, stability and target formulation cost before finalisation.
The combination of formulation development and in-house performance testing allowed d-labs to identify the most promising formulation pathway quickly and optimise it against measurable commercial targets.
The Outcome
A commercially viable formulation that achieved the required benchmark performance
Within approximately eight to nine months, d-labs developed an enzymatic laundry liquid that achieved the client’s required cleaning performance against the selected market-leading benchmark while remaining within the target formulation cost.
The completed formulation enabled the client to fill an identified gap in its laundry portfolio and progress a product concept that its internal development team had been working to resolve for approximately two years.
The project also demonstrated the value of integrating formulation development with comparative performance testing, allowing each development decision to be assessed against the commercial performance target throughout the project.
8–9 months
From project engagement to a formulation ready to progress toward manufacture.
Benchmark achieved
Required cleaning performance delivered against the selected market-leading product.
Target cost achieved
Performance objectives met within the client’s required formulation cost.
Commercial opportunity unlocked
The resulting product enabled the client to address a previously unfilled area of its portfolio.
The client team responsible for bringing d-labs into the project subsequently received an internal company award for the project outcome.
Work With d-labs
Have a laundry detergent development challenge of your own?
d-labs helps detergent companies develop, optimise and benchmark laundry formulations against real performance and commercial targets.