Auchan Offers Green Store Brand Cleaners
By Jean-Claude Alpi

Auchan’s new line of ecologique store brand products include household cleaners, detergents and fabric softeners with the latter two categories employing the virtues of aloe vera.

This July in France, Auchan launched an ecologique-labeled line of store brand cleaners. The eight-item line puts Auchan in the forefront of retailers in France offering such products.

Thanks to the call for action on the part of such world leaders as Mr. Al Gore, retailers are developing and consumers are using more environmental-friendly products that make life more ethical. Gore is the former vice president of the United States who created the film documentary An Inconvenient Truth, on the Earth’s climate crisis.

Earlier this year this PLI correspondent visited in Auchan (Le Mans, France) a new section in the store where products are arranged not over the idea of use but over that of fair consumption. These products–household cleaners–are usually among the most criticized on their negative impact on the environment.

Usually in stores, laundry detergent, softeners, dishwasher detergent and all the hand cleaning products are not in the same aisle. But Auchan places them in a specific section along with the best known eco-friendly national brand, l’Arbre Vert or green tree. This grouping allows the customer to compare the competition, the price gaps, and the quality assurance of the Auchan brand. And this approach works.

Opposite of most detergents made out of harsh chemicals, Auchan chooses to formulate its eco-friendly cleaners from vegetal raw materials that are 100% renewable. And Auchan guarantees that these detergents contain no phosphates, a raw material responsible for the pollution of rivers and killing fish. So they use citrus vinegar for dishwasher and thyme for hand washing liquid and multi-service washing liquid. And above all, Auchan’s detergent and softeners contain aloe vera-a succulent plant well known for centuries for offering 1001 beauty virtues.

Auchan’s Products

PLI found in this Auchan store a 3 liters washing machine detergent with aloe vera at 5.45 euros (the same under the national brand was priced 5.93 euros). Auchan also offered fabric softener in powder liquid form.

For automatic dishwasher detergent (45 washings) the price was 5.49 euros versus non-ecologic Calgonit (45 washings) priced at 8.61 euros. For hand dish-washing liquid with thyme, the Auchan product was 1.40 euros for 0.5 liters versus Arbre Vert with almonds at 1.75 euros.

Other products included 0.5 liter spray bottles of Auchan multi-surface cleaners with thyme for 1.65 euros (the national brand with rosemary 1.75 euros), Auchan window cleaner was 1.35 euros and anti-bacterial cleaner was 1.65 euros (while the national brand was 1.75 euros).

Package Design

In terms of design as you can see in the product photos, the packaging graphics are intended to communicate the pureness of the products with a common symbol in the form of a large leaf that represents the environment.

The leaf design is placed on top of a blue aquatic background to represent water preservation. The scents are simple, and the packaging is plain, with the use of materials like varnishes. But above all packaging is 10 to 30% lighter than the competitor’s products.

These Auchan eco-products are designed to represent a good value. They offer consumers good quality, high efficiency (a dishwasher tablet is 28% lighter than its competitor for the same efficiency) and fair prices.

The European Ecolabel was granted to all these new Auchan eco-products. This means that they are recognized as eco-friendly products in the 26 countries of the European Union and at least in the EU countries where Auchan operates stores. For the reader’s reference, it should be noted that the European Ecolabel is granted mainly on non-food products rather than food, beverages, or pharmaceuticals. For Food, most European countries have their own National Ecolabel.

We should note that this trend toward eco-friendly products is still very early in its development among retailers in France. For instance, the System U supermarket chain just announced in early July 2007 the introduction in stores in October 2007 of 80 food eco-products under the name “Bio U.”

But a point of interest is that Auchan’s approach is the use of the European Ecolabel that allows the retailer to have just one pronouncement of its conformity to the European requirements for all the states where it operated. Furthermore, for the customer, this European Ecolabel is much more significant than national ones for it analyzes the environment impact of products during their entire life circle–from raw materials to after-use elimination.