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00:01:11.000Hey. Welcome back to Distribution Unpacked. I'm Adam Fox and I'm really excited today. I have Anthony Torigno with us from Gojo or I think Clorox Gojo. Clorox Purell. Anthony, what's the new name?
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00:01:24.000Clorox Purell is the new division on the B2B side. So we're. Gojo Industries was acquired by the Clorox Company April 1st. And we are part of the Clorox Purell division of. Which is really the B2B arm of the Clorox company.
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00:01:28.000So for the legacy guys in the business and gals, the Gojo name has gone away.
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00:01:44.000Yes, but it's, you know, it's. It's ingrained in the industry, I think, and ingrained in all of our minds. So I catch myself regularly. It is still an entity, a Gojo llc. So not in any trouble if we say it slip. But yeah, Clorox Purell is kind of the go forward.
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00:01:52.000I love that. So, Anthony, you actually come today with a little bit of a different background. Not many people know this, but you actually started your career as @spr.
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00:01:53.000That is correct.
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00:01:53.000Tell us a little bit about that.
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00:02:31.000Yeah, so I actually. This is my 23rd year in the industry. I started in high school, I was 17 years old as an order picker in the New York City branch night shift and graduated high school and really thought distribution for some reason never intended to, but it really kind of interested me. I kind of viewed it as a game. How can I make things more efficient in the warehouse? So ended up running that brain branch for a number of years. And then back in my youth, my goal was to be a GM of an SP Richards branch. So you need to get sales experience at the time. So ended up joining the SP Richards sales team and the rest is kind of history.
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00:02:49.000Yeah. And I know you bunched around a couple of other wholesalers, redes and now obviously at, at, you know, at Purell. What, you know, as we think about, we look at the landscape of the industry and in your perspective, starting out from the warehouse to where you are today, what's been one constant that's always remained, but what's been something that you've seen evolve dramatically?
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00:03:44.000Oh yeah. Well, the one constant is change. Right. I mean, at the time when I was at SP Richards, the office product industry channel was really consolidating. You know, the big boxes were kind of consolidating a lot of the independence, which is we've now seen kind of transition over in the Jansan space. Obviously E Commerce has been a huge impact to, you know, all businesses, but specifically the independent reseller. What I find the most interesting is really the kind of tenacity of the independent distributor. I think, you know, they've gone through so much and you think about the last couple years with the pandemic and all the adversity there and they still, you know, are entrepreneurial and scrappy and continue to kind of eke out wins and grow. And I really admire that. And I, I value working with them and being a part of that story with them.
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00:04:26.000Yeah. And I think it's been interesting obviously when you talked about in the op space happening several years ago, I think we've seen now happen on the Jans and space all the consolidations and what that looks like. And it's definitely a, a different landscape today. Even in my, you know, short 10 years in the space, watching kind of what happened when I joined working for the buying group back in 2016 to today, it's so interesting. You look at the, the logos of distributors, they're all gone now or they're under an umbrella of something. So it's a different landscape. So let's talk Purell, let's talk all the fun stuff. What, you know, for us, we were heading into back to school season and what does that look like? You know, Purell has been a huge player in classrooms and in schools. What's some fun facts or what are you thinking about? What is Purell getting ready for in the back to school season?
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00:05:49.000Yeah, I mean obviously in back to school bottles tend to be like a huge win but what we've seen or a huge driver of volume keeping kids and staff healthy and safe. But really post pandemic, you know, pre pandemic, what we had seen in specifically like public education was really the lowest price from like a soap perspective. Most people know Legacy Gojo or now Clorox Purell as Purell hand sanitizer. But you know, a majority of our business is soap and we have really, you know, really nice solutions. In the dispensed soap category we really couldn't get into the education space pre pandemic. I think out of all the terrible things that came out of the pandemic, one of the I would say upsides is that there's more of an awareness of what it really means to like clean your hands or clean spaces. And formulation matters and it's not just the lowest price wins. So we're growing rapidly in education specifically over the last couple years. We have a lot of catered solutions for education spaces, more durable dispensers, you know, high quality formulations that are gentle on hand. So we're really excited about expanding on our bottle business, you know, and true hand sanitizer and growing in the soap category in education.
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00:05:59.000Yeah, I think that's interesting. And obviously you guys have a ton of selling tools and solutions that you provide us that we can provide onward to our customers. So I'm going to ask you a scientific question. Feel free to punt this one.
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00:06:00.000I'll try.
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00:06:12.000So maybe I'm the only one in the space but I know there's something when you used to wash your hands with old school, you know, pink soap. Yeah. Bulk soap, you would feel it in your hands. It was like wow, that feels clean.
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00:06:13.000Yeah.
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00:06:21.000And now we go to foam. The reality is from an efficacy perspective and truly cleaning there is no difference. Is that a true statement?
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00:07:02.000It we can go really go deep down the rabbit hole. Soap in general. Um, so, so bulk soap and there's two different types of soap essentially there's antibacterial and bland. So bland Soap is over 90% of the market in non healthcare acute. That does not kill germs. So what the the surfactant with water and the actual physical washing of the hands for 20 seconds. Two happy birthdays will help you remove a certain percentage of the germs from your skin. Bulk soap is not sanitary sealed. So if you see those flip top dispensers in a restroom, think about that. There's no germ killing agent in that soap.
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00:07:03.000Okay.
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00:07:09.000You're in a restroom, you're opening that container and bulk filling and think about what particles are floating in a restroom.
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00:07:10.000Outstanding.
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00:07:26.000Yeah. So there is a difference. Not necessarily from the foam to bulk, but sanitary sealed versus bulk. I mean, there are a lot of studies out on this that when you're using a bulk soap dispenser, often you're putting more germs on your skin than you're actually removing.
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00:07:31.000You didn't think we'd be talking about like surfactant levels today, did you? No, but it's good, it's impressive.
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00:07:36.000We could get into log removals and then we could get into our clean release technology. That's where we talk about, listen, we
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00:07:54.000can get into illusion control in 256 versus 512. We can throw. You know, how to set it up effectively. You know, obviously hand soap is kind of the base of where the business began and what it's always been. And obviously the Purell brand starting out from what the average person knows is hand sanitizer. But there's wipes, now there's spray.
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00:07:55.000Correct.
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00:08:00.000Walk us through that. How are you guys positioning that for the upcoming year? What does that look like not only for back to school, but maybe even cold and flu season?
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00:09:12.000Yeah, no, it's a great question. So we have a number of surface disinfecting products, spray wipes and various platforms. Really? You know, the elevator speeches. You know, we are a, the lowest category toxicity rating with the EPA category 4. No precautionary statements on the product. It's food contact safe, no rinse required. Most of the other EPA surface disinfectants or sanitizers in the market have some level of toxicity and require some level of PPE or precaution and are not food contact safe. So when you think about, and I have young kids, I remember going through this training and being a little horrified of then going into my children's preschool and looking at what they were using around their food or on their, their surface that they were eating from. And you know, you can read those precautionary statements on the back of any of those products. And in a lot of cases you're supposed to be wearing gloves or you're supposed to come back and rinse with water. So that's the big takeaway from the Purell branded surface disinfectants. Whether it's spray or Wipes is that safety profile and efficacy. Typically when you make something more safe, you make it less efficacious. That is not the case with our products.
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00:09:21.000Is the goal in the food service space for the wipe or the spray to kind of get rid of the red and green bucket that's hanging behind the counter space?
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00:09:22.000Yeah.
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00:09:23.000With the rag dripping.
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00:09:24.000Yes.
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00:09:25.000Behind the counter.
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00:09:54.000I would say that's a personal goal of mine. And likely you start digging into some of those studies. It's pretty shocking. You know, they're supposed to be tested regularly. They almost never are. You're going from one table to the next. Yeah. The idea would be to, you know, use something that disinfects rapidly. Our food service sanitizing wipes kill norovirus. Most other products out there do not. That's the leading cause of food poisoning. And a single use product that you can toss away rather than that rag that you're kind of perpetually dragging from one table to the next.
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00:10:03.000Yeah. And that's just always a good look. Yeah. So, you know, obviously restaurants is an opportunity. You spent a little bit of time talking about healthcare. I want to be careful. Acute, non acute.
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00:10:04.000Sure.
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00:10:14.000What. Where's a win for you guys with your. Where does. Where does an SP customer win? Positioning the Purell brand or product in both an acute and non acute facility.
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00:10:42.000Yeah. So I would say it's a little challenging. So acute health care typically is GPO driven. Right. And there's a lot of authorization around that and all of that. So just high level for the broad audience member right now watching. This is what we see a lot of. Where we see a lot of success with the independent is all care. So dentist office, veterinary clinics, that type of situation. Podiatry offices, long term care is another one.
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00:10:43.000It's basically outside of the hospital.
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00:10:45.000Yeah. Hospitals are.
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00:10:46.000Or.
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00:10:52.000Yeah. And not saying that the independent can't. We've. We have. But that is nuanced. Requires GPO typically authorization.
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00:10:54.000And you got to talk that talk.
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00:11:38.000Correct. You have to, you have to know, you know, the, the correct staff members, the EVS members and what they're trying to get from a compliance perspective. So we can definitely help there. And if there's anyone listening who has those opportunities, reach out to the SP rep and come to us. But kind of blanket long term care outside of hospitals, all care, you know, local physicians, that type of situation is typically where we see that and we have, you know, the most trusted brand out there, typically the most efficacious and safe. And then we have a lot of dispensing systems that really solve real world problems like ES10, which has the energy on the refill so you have to worry about batteries dying and being out of compliance. Or the at a glance technology where you could easily see it, you know, reducing labor.
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00:11:39.000Yeah.
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00:11:40.000So there's a lot of benefits there.
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00:12:05.000Let's talk. So you guys introduced yes 10 a couple of years ago to the market and it's been a great product. Obviously the batteries in it, things you just wouldn't think about if you're in the space. But you guys have done a really good job. When we talk about TCO or total cost of ownership for whether it's the BSC or really the end user using that, what are you seeing as the biggest surprise or the biggest win out of the new ES10 system versus the for, you know, probably the previous gens.
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00:12:51.000Personally not speaking for the company, but personally, my. The biggest surprise I've seen is how many end users are calling for this type of solution. You know, it. There's a lot of innovation built into it. You know, we don't have to get into all of it, but it is on the premier side of from a pricing perspective. So we kind of, at least I had this perception that it would be a specific type of end user. But I think what we've seen in the labor market over the last couple years, kind of post pandemic labor shortages and really total costs like not just the refill, but who am I paying to go change these refills and track the batteries and all of that all encompassing. What is the total cost of this solution? I mean, it's been our most successful dispensing system launch ever. That's on the history of Clorox Bureau.
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00:12:52.000Yeah. And it's good looking.
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00:13:05.000Yeah, it is very esthetically pleasing. It comes with, you know, there's some smart washroom technology in it where you can download a free app and track your, you know, consumption levels. So it's been a great.
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00:13:41.000We love winning in the wash in the washroom. That's, you know, Anthony, we spent a lot of time at SP this past year and kind of our mantra moving forward is really about simplifying complexity. How does SPR we work with not only our suppliers, but our customers, whether it's a distributor or a dealer, to really simplify that complexity. Because at the end of the day it is a complex system, whether it's logistics or supply chain or really whatever that is. In your perspective, how can we partner. How can partnering with SP from a customer's perspective, just simplify that complexity so we can get the great products and really the solutions that you're known for out into the field.
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00:14:38.000Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I think, I think what SP Richards does for its customers is that. Exactly. That is simplifying complexity is being able to source all of these products quickly in one kind of, you know, encompassing order, having one point of contact for multiple different brands. I think that, you know, for any of the independents out there that maybe perceive, like, oh, I don't have a direct relationship with Gojo or Clorox Purell, that's not the case. We have resources. We have a team dedicated to SP Richards that they could leverage through SP Richards to help grow their business. So let us help both your customer and SP Richards grow. We want to, you know, treat every one of SP Richards customers as if they bought direct from us, but by sourcing through SP Richards for all of those reasons we talked about and you know, one stop shop for multiple brands, including Clorox Bureau.
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00:14:56.000So obviously, you know, obviously our sales reps are out in the field and they're working with dealers and distributors every day on a multitude, a multitude of solutions. So what's in your opinion, a great way for a dealer or distributor to get in contact with, with a Gojo rep or an S, what's the best way for them? Should they work with their SP rep?
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00:15:49.000I think they should work with their SP rep. Again, going back to simplifying complexity. Right. Is. Is, you know, going to SP saying, yeah, you know, I'd like to, to grow my hand hygiene business or surface business. Can you get me in touch with the, the Gojo app? And then we kind of come in as consultants essentially, and, and help them identify opportunities, learn about their business. What vertical markets are they selling into? What solutions do we have that fit those vertical markets? Because ES10 is great, but it's not the best fit for every type of end user. It's not great for in General, K through 12 kids can be rambunctious and sometimes we've seen them jam a pen through an ES10. Right. So we have a great system in FMX20 that's really durable and larger refills. So, you know, go through your SP Richards rep, ask them to get in contact with the Clorox Purell team. I still slipping on that.
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00:15:50.000It's going to be Gojo for a
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00:15:58.000very, very long time. Yes. And we're here to help. You don't have to be an expert. We're here to do that and. And help you grow your business.
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00:16:11.000That's awesome. All right, so here's the real. The real question. We have all these new, innovative things, all these new products, all this great stuff you're bringing to market. Is the orange soap still available?
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00:16:12.000Orange hand cleaner?
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00:16:12.000Oh, yeah.
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00:16:13.000Yes, it is.
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00:16:22.000Those of you that don't know, obviously it's. It's a soap that's used in the manufacturing space and where in, you know, auto care. Yeah, all that kind of stuff. And it's still around in the box. It's ready to go.
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00:16:39.000And we have the scrubbing towels too, if you're not familiar with those. They're incredible. And they're one of my favorite products that I did, that former colleague of mine introduced me to. But yes, that Gojo brand and manufacturing auto care is still the brand. Right. That's. Purell is really kind of the other
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00:16:46.000vertical markets, but yep, that's awesome. And. And just to clarify, over the years, you guys have done a really good job moving away from legacy Gojo branding.
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00:16:47.000Right.
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00:16:48.000Even in healthcare, you guys had Provon.
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00:16:49.000Correct.
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00:16:52.000Everything kind of just sits under the Purell brand today.
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00:17:08.000Correct. Outside of the manufacturing space, those kind of, you know, industrial type hand cleaners, everything else is kind of under the Purell. So we have Purell Healthy soap. We have Purell hand sanitizer and then Purell surface disinfecting or sanitizing products, depending on the vertical market.
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00:17:09.000That's awesome.
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00:17:10.000Yeah.
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00:17:10.000Anthony, thanks for taking some time.
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00:17:11.000Thank you for having me.
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00:17:12.000This is awesome.
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00:17:13.000Yeah.
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00:17:13.000See you soon.
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00:17:14.000Thank you, Sam.
