When investing, your capital is at risk.
OceanSaver is helping fight the single-use plastic problem by helping you to replace your home cleaning products with plastic-free, sustainable alternatives. Their EcoDrop is a concentrated solution used to refill your cleaning bottles at home. Just add water! We sat down with the team to find out more.
Hello Dee, Anna and Emma. What are your roles at OceanSaver? And can you give a bit of detail about your backgrounds/experience?
Dee: I’m MD at OceanSaver, previous to that my background has been predominantly in start-up brands in a brand marketing remit, building brands and brand equity, working across all marketing channels. In 2020 I was recognised as LDC’s ‘one to watch’ most ambitious business leaders.
Anna: I am Head of Marketing at OceanSaver. I have 15 years of brand marketing experience at some of the world’s best known FMCG and lifestyle brands, including Herbal Essences, Hugo Boss and Lacoste fragrances and Burberry. In my most recent role before joining OceanSaver, I was Head of Advertising at Red Bull UK.
Emma: I am Sales Director at OceanSaver. I have worked in various commercial and new product development roles across FMCG and have experience working with all major UK retailers – launching category defining NPD. I was part of The Grocer Top New Talent 2019.
What is OceanSaver and how did you come up with the idea of EcoDrop refills?
Dee: OceanSaver was born from a deep love of the sea and a concern over single-use plastic. Our oceans are precious, and we want to keep them this way for future generations. But plastic is destroying them at an ever increasing rate. It is predicted that by 2050 there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish.
As a brand we wanted to eliminate the need for single-use plastic in people’s home cleaning routines and we firmly believe that small changes can have a big impact. This is why we took a stand and created really effective, completely plastic-free, plant-based home cleaning solutions, with all the power of regular household cleaners but none of the pollution. Our concentrated EcoDrop refills transform when added to water, creating safe and powerful products. Simply drop, shake & clean.
There are a few other businesses doing similar things to you, how do you differentiate yourselves?
Anna: The main difference between OceanSaver and other players in the ‘just add water’ space is our clear and genuine purpose and a single-minded mission. Some of the other players didn’t start out as ‘eco brands’ but pivoted into this area seeing it as a business opportunity. Others who started as eco-brands lack clarity in their purpose, which is known to be the key driver of long-term brand growth.
We believe that our proposition offers the whole package: Being 100% plastic-free, plant-based, and using absolutely minimal, fully recyclable packaging, we believe we are ahead of our competitors on sustainability, without compromising on efficacy. With fair pricing and physical as well as digital retail availability, we strive to make sustainable cleaning accessible to everyone.
OceanSaver refills are stocked in 157 Tesco stores, and reputable retailers such as Dunelm and Ocado, could you explain your supply chain process from production to instore?
Emma: Of course! We currently manufacture our EcoDrops in China (we’re currently working on a project to move our production to the UK in the next 6 months) but we ship in carbon neutral containers. All our products are stored with our 3PL partner near Birmingham (who have fantastic sustainability credentials!) We then transport as efficiently as possible to retailer depots or ship direct to our consumers in completely plastic free packaging.
What has been OceanSaver’s biggest achievement to date?
Anna: To date we have prevented over 1 million plastic cleaning bottles from reaching our oceans which is the equivalent of 870x The Shard buildings stacked on top of each other or enough to fill up the entirety of Trafalgar Square! It’s a big milestone for us and we are looking forward to preventing many more millions of bottles from reaching our oceans.
What are your plans to drive scalability and achieve a profitable streak?
Emma: We have big growth plans which involve all of our current sales channels and will drive scalability for the business. Our new product development (NDP) will be accretive and drive more regular purchasing habits, as these will be products that are used more frequently around the home. We’re starting to see this impact with NPD that’s just launched.
What are you excited about for OceanSaver in the near future and do you see yourself introducing more products?
Dee: I’m hugely excited about the NPD we have in our pipeline – there are some really exciting products coming through! I’m also really excited about some of the marketing we have planned and seeing new customers being brought into the brand and becoming OceanSavers!
A few personal ones:
What do you love to do in your free time?
Dee: I love spending time cooking and baking, and if i’m not cooking I love trying out new restaurants and bars.
Anna: Spending time with my sons, Max (7) and Theo (2), reading crime novels, making cocktails and trying out new restaurants (eating is a bit of a theme at OceanSaver!).
Emma: I’m a big foodie, too, so can normally be found hunting out new restaurants or trying new branded products!
What other eco-friendly product are you loving right now?
Dee: I’m currently loving Milk & More, receiving my milk in reusable glass milk bottles and to top it off it gets delivered in an old school milk float!!
Anna: I recently discovered reusable bamboo makeup remover pads and am a big fan of nuud deodorant, a concentrated natural deodorant cream that’s been certified plastic negative.
Emma: I love my weekly Oddbox with lots of fruit and veg that would otherwise go to waste and reverting back to old school soap bars!
To invest in OceanSaver and look after the turtles, check out the pitch.
