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“Bottlewash ensures cleaning of returnable bottles”
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Monday, 14 May, 2018, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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The cleaning industry is going through a paradigm shift by incorporating disruptive technologies, reducing the amount of physical labour and increasing productivity and efficiency of workers. Diversey is a global company providing sustainable solutions that improve food safety and security. It is engaged in facility hygiene, maintenance and sustainability along with food hygiene. The company integrates chemicals, floor care machines, tools and equipment while looking at operational and cost-efficient ways. Its innovations, seamless customisation, productivity enhancement, green seal certified solutions, and building brand credibility thereby advocates the need for a clean and hygienic environment. Its solutions like Clax Advanced (High Efficiency Laundry Program), Waterless Urinal Program and Kitchen Cleaning Re-imagined have been highly successful in achieving this target.
The company caters to major hospitality and F&B brands in India that include Yum Restaurants (KFC and Pizza Hut), Sapphire Foods, Taj Group, ITC, Oberois, RadissonBlu, Ramada, Airports Authority of India, building service contractors like Sodexo, ISS, Compass, IHG Starwoods, Crowne, HolidayInn, InterContinental.
Ilham Kadri, president & CEO, Diversey, talks about the company’s vision with Internet of Clean (IOC) a platform that connects machines, dispensers, sensor and other smart devices in an email interaction with Harcha Bhaskar. Excerpts:
Tell us about your products and the initiative catering to food sector. Diversey is a global supplier of hygiene and cleaning solutions that integrates chemicals, floor care machines, tools and equipment. We pursue operational and cost efficiency, sustainable and purposeful innovations, seamless customisation, and productivity enhancement. We advocate the need for a better cleaning and hygiene standards for the industrial end of food processing.
How different are hygiene solutions, for various food verticals like dairy, meat, food processing, beverages and agriculture? When you get into a specialised segment like food processing, which is also critical from public health and scale point of view, it’s inevitable to customise as per each vertical. For example, DryFormance is one of the solutions within the Diversey portfolio of knowledge-based services. The technology enables brewing, beverage and dairy companies to perform critical conveyor belts lubrication without the use of water.
Traditionally, a typical packaging line uses a soap lubricant and water for smooth movement of packages on the conveyors. This can be highly water-intensive, results in wet and slippery floors compromising safety of the personnel working in the production area and often creating an ideal environment for microbiological growth. DryFormance is a water-free conveyor lubrication technology combined with the packaging line engineering excellence. The unique program delivers upto 100% water reduction in conveyor lubrication. While it has significant positive impact on the overall operational efficiency of the production line, the dry operating environment improves health and safety; it improves asset life by increasing the life of plastic conveyor belts. It improves overall sustainability index by reducing water consumption, reducing waste water treatment, reducing energy consumption that ultimately has a direct impact on Carbon Dioxide emissions.
We have been driven to provide tailor-made solutions to other verticals as well.
According to you, how well equipped is Indian food & hospitality industry in regards to hygiene, cleanliness and food safety? Indian food & hospitality industry is booming. With so many foreign investors looking towards India for investments, we see a great opportunity in upgrading the existing traditional methods of food production.
The growing urban segment and food retail is giving an exponential rise to the demand for food processing. And our solutions cater to the leading players in the industry which are now on a revived outlook on cleaning methods.
What are the cleanliness and hygiene revolutions that are taking place in the hospitality industry? The cleaning industry is going through a shift by incorporating disruptive technologies that reduce the amount of physical labour required and increase productivity and efficiency of workers. Today, the technological revolution has taken the housekeeping operations to a new level of ease altogether especially in the hospitality sector.
To this end, Diversey has added dynamic cloud-based technology focussed on improving operating performance and sustainability in the industry. It has come up with Internet of Things innovations like Intelli dish (monitoring and optimising dish machines’ energy, water and chemical consumption) and Intelli Linen (monitoring and optimising washer extractors’ load factors, cycle times, water and energy). We are collaborating with Winnow which is a cloud-based technology to fight food wastage, as the application experts and service representatives already have deep working relationships with chefs and F&B teams.
Diversey has invested heavily in Internet of Clean (IoC) which connects machines, tools and dispensing to the cloud to bring hospitality managers and executives data that leads to understanding patterns and performance in every day cleaning and hygiene activities. The Internet of Clean is empowering its customers and employees to work smarter and more sustainably than ever before.
Which are the various hospitality and food companies that you cater to with your products? Diversey caters to the major of hospitality and F&B brands in India that include Yum Restaurants (KFC and Pizza Hut), Sapphire Foods, Taj Group, ITC, Oberois, Radisson Blu, Ramada, Airports Authority of India, building service contractors like Sodexo, ISS, Compass, IHG Starwoods, Crowne, HolidayInn, InterContinental. In F&B we have Coke, Pepsi, United Breweries, Carlsberg, Hatsun and GCMMF.
How have the recent acquisitions of Moonbeam (UV lights for disinfection) and Twister (a brand of polishing pads) have strengthened the company portfolio? The Moonbeam acquisition gives Diversey Care access to a robust innovation pipeline.
UVC disinfection technology has the power to reduce the spread of pathogens that can cause dangerous infections when combined with consistent and proper manual cleaning and disinfection. Daylight’s innovations are a symbiotic fit with Diversey’s existing infection prevention platform, which includes key innovations such as Accelerated Hydrogen Peroxide (AHP)-based disinfectants. Adjunct technologies, such as no-touch disinfection devices, which will allow all facilities concerned with preventing infection such as hospitals, schools and airports.
Twister is a patented system for daily floor cleaning using floor pads impregnated with billions of microscopic diamonds which clean and polish the floor mechanically. Twister is a completely chemical-free system that works with water only. The Twister acquisition has helped Diversey in extending its market leadership, to strengthen its full value proposition and offer integrated solutions between chemicals, TASKI machines, robotics and tools at the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) to their customers globally. It has also helped Diversey in providing TCO solutions for it’s customers globally.
How diversified is your business in India, how has it evolved over the years? How much is the Indian region turnover, what is the growth rate? Here, our focus is segmented and highly customised. We identify each client according to the way they address their customers. We have separate verticals for hospitality, facility management / building service contractors, retail, infrastructure, and offices. Also, we have completely distinct and differentiated offering for pharma, dairy, beverages and breweries.
Within the organised space, Diversey is leading in India. And we see high growth in hospitality and facility management. What are the technological advancements and R&D taking place in the company in India? One of our global R&D laboratories is situated in Mumbai, India. This is how client-centric our innovations are. Like, Divobrite Novo bottle washing program uses matrix approach for selection of cleaning chemistry and design-a-wash program recipe customised to site-specific conditions. This is backed by application expertise gathered from decades of experience and engineering design capabilities for precise dosing and control of the cleaning chemicals. Divobrite Novo bottlewash program ensures effective cleaning of returnable glass bottles, optimised usage of cleaning chemicals, and improves productivity by significantly reducing washed bottle rejects at optimised cost in use.
Then there is DivoMask, which is a cosmetic surface coating which practically eliminates the appearance of scuff marks on returnable glass bottles in beverage and brewing industry. Hence, improving their acceptable life-span and resulting in significant cost savings on the investment of new bottles. This superior visual appearance of the masked bottles is a huge marketable advantage to the bottlers as it enhances the brand image. All these are delivered to the bottler at a highly economical cost which is significantly lower as compared to investing in a new glass float.
Tell us about your company’s CSR activities. How has initiatives Garima and Soap for Hope impacted the public? Diversey as a company has always looked at sustainability and technologies which can bring about a revolution towards cleaning and hygiene. Climate change, growing competition for energy, stress on water supplies and managing waste are among the leading environmental challenges the world currently faces. Diversey believes that it must contribute to global solutions and works to continuously enhance the efficiencies of its offices and manufacturing facilities around the world.
One such initiative is Garima – Diversey School of Hygiene [‘garima’ in Hindi means ‘dignity’]. Diversey is trying to bring about a societal change through this program. Janitors are generally seen as nameless, faceless people and it kind of makes them feel undignified. Hence, Diversey School of Hygiene is trying to give them training to become what they have termed ‘hygiene technicians.’ A level-three technician certification is provided after teaching them about safety, simple chemistry, basically the scientific way of cleaning. The program has been running over a year and they have already trained 7,000 people. The best part is that everyone who completes this program is guaranteed job security.
Another such initiative is Soap for Hope by Diversey that creates employment opportunities and improves hygiene. Basis our research, a 400-room hotel generates approximately 3.5 metric tonne of solid soap waste per annum, which is thrown into bin bags and sent off to landfill sites. We approached hotels and asked them to give the waste soap to us, and communicated that we will recycle them and distribute it amongst the poor community who don’t have access to basic hygiene, and this will help them reduce their waste to a large extent and save the environment. This initiative has provided soaps to thousands of people annually and thus save lives through proper hand hygiene, in India.
Through these shared value initiatives, Diversey is committed to provide a better way to life and has impacted the public at large. What is the roadmap of the company internationally and focus areas for 2018? Diversey has just launched its new identity which defines our new and more focussed approach towards facilitators of life. Cleanliness and hygiene is not a matter of chores, it’s what ensures sustainability and durability. In the organised playground, we’re leading the market with a pro-consumer attitude and we are going to continue growing in this respect. We’re trying to build an industry-consumer community that is more aware and knowledgeable about the value we promise and deliver.
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