AAK Personal Care and Integrity Ingredients’ US distribution partnership expands clean beauty supplies

03 Mar 2022 --- Plant-based emollient specialist AAK Personal Care is burgeoning its partnership with Integrity Ingredients for a US-wide distribution of its personal care product line. The partnership kicks off on April 1.

Vito Cataldo, senior manager at AAK, speaks to PersonalCareInsights clarifying the role of sustainability in partnership, on clean ingredient synergies and the importance of ethical supply chains.  

“When I look at competitors, I generally see two types of natural ingredient suppliers. First, some focus on upstream sourcing, emphasizing where ingredients originate and how they are cultivated. Others focus downstream on performance, with an emphasis on how ingredients are modified to perform best in formulation,” observes Cataldo.

He elaborates that AAK pushes for progress on “upstream and downstream parts of the value chain.” 

“We recognize that a customer’s biggest asset is consumer trust in their brand. At AAK, we invest heavily on both upstream and downstream value chains to make sure our specialty ingredients minimize any risk in their formulations.”AAK is a lipid expert hence the brand name ‘Lipex’ shares Cataldo.    

Responding to changing demands in personal care markets
Cataldo shares that the company has changed its respective market strategies over the past decade due to developments in the personal care markets. During this time, Integrity Ingredients “expanded across the US and into Canada, focusing on the distribution of clean beauty ingredients.” 

 “AAK’s market share and demand for plant-derived emollients have increased dramatically. In addition, the expansion of powerful and influential indie brands, along with the global pandemic, has triggered many personal care organizations to reset their market coverage approach,” explains Cataldo.  

Cataldo needed companies that could “carry that transparency and ethical sourcing mantra from AAK to its customers” in the search for partners to meet market demands. 

Furthermore, he explains that Integrity Ingredients has a reputation for “being a responsible supplier to its customers and continues to evolve and expand their commitment to ethical sourcing and business transparency.”

Therefore, AAK decided on Integrity Ingredients to use its combined resources “with the goal that every personal care product in the future can be traced back to celebrate and honor the people on the ground that were able to make it happen,” states Cataldo.

Sustainable ingredients and supply chains
On the question of sustainable ingredients, Cataldo agrees that “sustainability can often be used as a catch-all for so many things these days.”Integrity Ingredients believes in ‘beauty with a conscience.’

“For AAK, this [sustainability] comes down to doing the right things for the people and planet that are most impacted by the materials we seek to source. We are on the ground with smallholders, understanding how to make better things happen in their lives, in their communities, and for the ecosystem that surrounds them.”

David Howell, CEO at Integrity Ingredients, adds that it shares a powerful synergy with AAK’s “green, renewable innovation.” 

Cataldo reports that all ingredients “are derived from renewable plant sources.” Additionally, what makes them ethical is due to attention to individual supply chains. 

“What is most impactful in one supply chain (i.e., shea butter) may be very different than what is most impactful in another supply chain (i.e., coconut oil). We avoid the one-size-fits-all approach to sustainability and instead collaborate closely with key stakeholders.”

“To us, that means sourcing raw materials…with fair and transparent working conditions for those involved, taking environmental and social impacts into consideration,” clarifies Cataldo.

Once the ingredients are sourced, AAK processes them to optimize sensory appeal.

Historical relationship“Integrity Ingredients has been a valuable sales agent partner to AAK since 2007,” says Cataldo.
“AAK has a long history with Integrity Ingredients, so Integrity knows our capabilities and has collaborated with us and helped shape new product development in the past,” describes Cataldo.

“More importantly, Integrity Ingredients has their pulse on the clean beauty market and recognizes where and how our technologies can be used to solve real customer problems.” 

Since the companies already share a long history, Cataldo describes the two new changes: “Integrity Ingredients territory coverage for AAK will expand beyond the west coast to include the entire US.”  

Secondly, “Integrity Ingredients’ role will expand beyond a sales agent to a full distributor, leveraging their regional warehouses, supply chain, and customer service teams to meet fast customer demand better.”

On a final note, AAK will continue to provide base oils and fats directly.

By Venya Patel