Berger Paints to enter home, personal hygiene biz

Kolkata: After FMCG companies like ITC and

Emami

, the paints companies are also entering the rapidly growing

sanitiser

market following the Covid-19 pandemic. Paints major

Berger Paints

is going to produce sanitiser commercially and entering home and personal hygiene space across the country. Berger would be the third paints company to launch sanitiser after Asian paints and JSW Paints did the same in the last fortnight. India’s sanitiser market, a small segment even a couple of months ago, could touch Rs 500-crore mark his year.

Abhijit Roy, MD & CEO of Berger Paints India (BPIL), told TOI on Friday that the sanitiser and home spray of Berger Paints would hit the stand in the next few days. The sanitiser brand of Berger, one of the leaders in decorative paints in the country, will be Breathe Easy. The company sells paints under the same brand.

“The government had requested us to produce sanitiser that is why we are entering into this space of health and hygiene. We have already informed stock exchanges regarding this,” he added.

On Thursday, JSW Paints announced a foray into the hand sanitiser segment in the domestic market with plans to roll out a disinfectant under brand Securall this month.

BPIL will produce sanitiser in its Rishra and Goa plants for now and later on, in other plants as well. “The production line of sanitiser is different, so there will be different demarcated area for this,” he Added.

In the new normal, the company is expecting a good demand for its health and hygiene ranges. Post-Covid, Berger plans to take Silk Breathe Easy Paint, Express Painting to rural areas and smaller towns.

According to industry experts, the sanitiser market in India used to be worth only Rs 114 crore. But in February 2020 itself, there was a sales surge of 50% compared to February 2019 and in March the spike in demand is almost 100%, which has gone up by 250% in April itself. Paints, however, come under non-essential services.

ITC has already entered sanitiser space with Savlon while Emami did it through extension of Boroplus brand and G D Pharmaceuticals, the maker of the iconic antiseptic cream

Boroline

, has started producing its hand sanitiser Ruksha. “Savlon has been relentless in its pursuit to serve a national priority and a key step has been to accelerate innovations that can offer significant anti-viral & anti-bacterial protection,” an ITC spokesperson said.

In order to meet an unprecedented spurt in demand for hand sanitiser, ITC had earlier changed its production line at its newly installed perfume plant in Himachal Pradesh to a sanitiser manufacturing unit.

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SAFETY AT HANDS

# Berger paints is introducing sanitiser under Breath Easy brand

# Asian Paints has already entered sanitiser space a few days back

# City-based ITC, Emami, G D Pharmaceuticals are making sanitisers

# Some other pharma companies joined the space in last 2 months

# India’s sanitiser market is growing at three-digit rate