The world economy is seeing its greatest fall ever. Coronavirus has largely impacted the growth of almost every country and is responsible for the slump in GDP worldwide. Like other countries, India is also impacted by this virus too. Almost every industry sector has seen a fall in their sales and revenue. India’s GDP growth has fallen to 4.7% in the third quarter of 2020.
In a dismal year for most companies, a minority have shone: pharmaceutical groups boosted by their hunt for a Covid-19 vaccine; technology giants buoyed by the trend for working from home; and retailers offering lockdown necessities online.
Indian consumer staples companies saw business boom during the Covid-19 pandemic. As consumers stayed home, they ate more biscuits, used more dishwashing gel and soap, and applied more disinfectants. The net result was volume and revenue growth that surprised even the most optimistic of earnings estimates made before the pandemic. This time, however, these companies are expected to underperform the market.
The first quarter of this fiscal or the ‘lockdown quarter’ saw pantry-loading by consumers. Volume growth, although different for different companies, was generally in high single digits, while margins rose on account of a decline in advertising expenses. Some categories like skin care products underperformed.
The second quarter saw brisk sales that the market put down to pent up demand and strong sales in rural India, while the third quarter saw a continuation of rural sales and an increase in discretionary categories.
The most heartening has been the rise in demand from rural India. These regions constitute the next set of consumers, and while low unit packs have lower margins, they help drive volume growth and bring in consumers from regional brands. Sales in rural India that were growing as fast as urban sales have now started growing at 1.5 times.
The consequences of lockdown and government-enforced restrictions as a result of the coronavirus pandemic have, of course, been felt heavily by businesses across all industries. Both the private healthcare sector and health and beauty businesses, which rely on close physical contact with their clients, have been significantly affected.
Demand for cosmetic & color products, amid the COVID-19 outbreak is anticipated to see a steep downfall. Apart from those products that are deemed to be essential during such a crisis, other non-essential products are anticipated to cater huge losses in the later half of the year. For example, post Covid-19 outbreak, U.S. consumers are changing their buying behaviors with 27.5% saying that the outbreak has resulted in limiting itself and avoiding public gatherings, thereby resulting in a steep decline in demand for cosmetic products. On the other hand, demand for personal hygiene products such as hand sanitizers and hand washes is growing at an exponential rate across the globe.
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a slight shift in the paradigm of what we consider to be essentials; hygiene products have entered this category, whereas industries like apparel have shifted to discretionary.
Discretionary products more generally have taken a backseat. Travel, consumer foodservice, luxury, apparel and footwear, consumer electronics, alcoholic drinks and tobacco have been severely impacted, as most companies have halted or scaled down their operations during the lockdown. However, some companies have transformed their facilities to produce products like masks, hand sanitisers, ventilators, etc, that aid the government and community in fighting the pandemic.
The industry has responded positively to the crisis, with brands switching their manufacturing to produce hand sanitizers and cleaning agents and offering free beauty services for frontline response workers.
Though there has been many exceptions as As cosmetic giants like Estee Lauder and Coty falter during the pandemic, Ulta Beauty has managed to beat Wall Street expectations,due to a boom in lash, brow, and eye makeup products.
Though Kumar Organic Products Ltd., do not fall in above categories but we too did strategize our business to sell our products that would help population during this pandemic as we are in the BUSINESS OF ANTIMICROBIALS. We have been selling consistently our products like PCMX & Triclosan. In fact the offtake has been very encouraging as we sold 80 tons of PCMX & 60 tons of Triclosan each month during this pandemic.
The reason why we focussed on these two products is because they can be used against microbes in various products as below.
Para-chloro-meta-xylenol (PCMX), also known as Chloroxylenol is a halogen-substituted phenolic compound that is used as a preservative in cosmetics and as an active agent in antimicrobial soaps & other products like wound-cleansing applications, and household antiseptics. It is an antiseptic and disinfectant agent used for skin disinfection and surgical instruments. Chloroxylenol functions as a cosmetic biocide & as deodorant agents. The halophenol is shown to be most effective against Gram positive bacteria where it disrupts the cell wall due to its phenolic nature.
Its Usages too are varied as below and is safe to use.
1.Hospital And Common Medical Use:
• PCMX can be used in skin disinfectant before operation, sterilization of medical equipments, daily clean of equipments and hard surface.
• PCMX can also be used to make medical antibacterial soap, disinfectant used to treat athlete's foot, and common first aid drugs.
• PCMX may be formulated in liquid, waterless hand cleanser, powder, cream or lotion form.
2. Household And General Daily Antibacterial Use:
• As the low toxicity of PCMX, it is frequently used in personal care products such as hand-cleaning detergent, soap, dandruff control shampoo and healthy products, etc.
• The common dosage of PCMX in lotion as follows: 0.5~1 wt‰ in liquid detergent, 1 wt% in antibacterial handing detergent, 4.5~5 wt% in disinfectant.
3. Industrial Use
• PCMX based on the cleaning formulations can be used in the fields such as:
• Glue and Adhesives, Painting and Paints additive, as anti-fungi agent, which is suitable for the wet condition;
• Textile and Pulp, used in the process of pre-immersion of fibre.
• Leather treatment: to prevent against attack of bacteria and fungi and mildew.
Our another product Triclosan has been found to demonstrate good virucidal efficacy against HCoV-229E, a COVID-19 strain, in addition to the ingredient's known antibacterial and antifungal effects.
According to a third party study, at 100 µM, the ingredient produced a log reduction of 5.67 against the HCoV-229E virus after 10 min. The study was conducted as per ASTEM E1053 and found that 100 µM Triclosan eliminated the SARS Virus HCoV-229E up to 99.99% after 5 min and 99.999% after 10 min. Thus it also could find utility in protective face masks, wipes, antimicrobial coatings, paints, pipes, door handles, bed foams, cleansers, hygiene products, sanitizers and medical devices.
This innovation of Triclosan having virucidal activity and it being effective against Covid 19 strain can really be boon for the mankind.
We have further developed following products using triclosan to help consumer.
1. No water Cleanser cum Sanitiser
2. Mouthwash
3. Nasal Spray (Proposed for Clinical trial)
As triclosan is an antibacterial and antifungal agent present in many consumer products. It is a chlorinated aromatic compound that has functional groups representative of both ethers and phenols; and phenols often show antibacterial properties.
As it is well-known, the ingredient has long been used in soaps, shampoos, deodorants, toothpastes, mouthwashes, cleaning supplies and pesticides, and is added to a variety of products to slow or stop the growth of bacteria, fungi and mildew.
Like all manufacturing organisations, we too are Strongly dependent on our workforce, so we too faced shortage of manpower and rapid adjustment to the health and safety requirements posed by COVID-19 while also had disruptions in the supply chain and uniquely changing demand.
Though it was testing time for business world over, our strategy worked and we at Kumar Organic Products Limited did achieve our top line & bottom line against all odds.
