Interview with Peter Asch, President, Twincraft Soap

Household & Personal Products Industry, Sept, 2003

Interviewer: You've been making private-label bar soap for 30 years. Where do you think the industry is headed today?

Asch: Increasing numbers of scientific clients are looking to add aesthetic values to their products, and increasing numbers of purely aesthetic clients are moving toward being more scientifically oriented, more efficacious. There are several new mass-market brands that hitherto were invented purely by scientists that are now also aesthetically driven-they look good, smell good, and feel good. We've positioned Twincraft to be precisely at that intersection of beauty and science.

For example, take Lever 2000. They rounded the product instead of keeping it angular. Women prefer the rounded edges, and the fragrance is lovely, yet it is still a scientific bar-it's mild, it's got fabulous foaming and cleansing properties, it's highly emollient for a soap product.

This is the way the market is moving and there are many new products on the horizon poised for introduction.

Interviewer: How are you combining beauty and science?

Asch: I'll give you an example from one of our clients. We have strict confidentiality agreements, so I can't tell you who, or give you much detail, but I can tell you a story.

A multinational cosmetics company came to us looking for help developing a scientifically and technically innovative product with aesthetic properties that were unique. They knew that innovation would command higher margins and greater volume. Our product development team spent nine months giving them different options to try. We presented bars, they used them, gave us feedback, and we continued to improve them.

We created half a dozen bars, which they narrowed down to three, and then to one. Then we worked on that one bar for months until it was perfect. We differentiated it aesthetically with a variety of visible additives like sea kelp, seaweed, and jojoba beads. We tried different combinations of soap bases to find the perfect formula for that customer and wound up with a low pH, high emollient, super-high-lather bar with a luxurious after-feel.

Our lab worked with their lab on a intensive basis. Our chemists worked with their chemists, our product people with theirs. Then they went out and marketed the product and it's been a massive winner for them: high volume, high margin. This is what we do.

Interviewer: You mentioned confidentiality. How do you work with so many competitors and keep everything confidential?

Asch: You're right, we are working with many different companies at the same time, so we are very careful that none of the information that is passed between us and our client is revealed to any other company. We work under confidentiality agreements that both parties sign, and we have a high degree of integrity so that we can partner deeply with our customers.

The partnership is important because we need to understand what our clients are trying to accomplish, which means we have to know their strategies and initiatives going forward, which is highly confidential information. They'll only share this with us if they trust us and know we won't divulge this information to other parties. That's one of the prime reasons we only make private label soap. Unlike some of my competitors, I will never develop my own brand, because I could not help but inadvertently benefit from some of the information shared with me. In addition, I refuse to compete with my customers. If I had my own brand, I'd be competing for shelf space they want to occupy, and I won't do that.

Interviewer: You talk about partnering with your customers. Don't you have customers that come to you already knowing what they want you to make?

Asch: Of course. Some have all the specs outlined and say to us, "If you can do this bar for this price, at this level of quality, you have the business." But the opposite is often true: we become the product development arm of the client company. We have a reputation for being very, very innovative, which is becoming increasingly important. We've built an internal expertise that our clients want to tap into-they deeply appreciate looking at the dynamic, interesting options we create for them that are in harmony with their line. Even though we're a fun, creative company, we tightly control our development and manufacturing processes. This enables us to provide excellent value, which translates into greater margins for our customers.

Interviewer: Thank you for your time. I'll keep an eye out for some of these innovative new soaps.