Tapping into biotechnology: Croda’s report urges cross-industry communication

29 Sep 2022 --- Croda International is releasing its first “Biotechnology: personal care market report,” aiming to assist forward-thinking companies to leverage opportunities provided by biotechnology. The report discusses the potential for innovation, barriers to widespread acceptance and ways to overcome these hurdles.

According to the report, the personal care sector is a bright spot in the global chemicals industry when switching from fossil fuels to bio-based ingredients. Consumer purchasing habits entirely drive this shift. Surprisingly, product performance and sustainability are more important than price.

Opening conversations
Damian Kelly, VP of innovation and technology development at Croda hopes that the reports open new conversations across industries on the benefits of biotechnology and the potential it has to solve long-standing problems.

“At Croda, we have already seen how biotechnology can be used to create differentiated products, especially in personal care. The wider adoption of biotechnology within the personal care market could lead to discoveries and unlock future growth.”

This inaugural report from Croda focuses on potential in the personal care industry. Biotechnology can support sustainability goals and produce novel effects to increase consumer appeal and differentiation of personal care brands.

Overcoming obstacles within biotechnology
While biotechnology capabilities have advanced across the personal care sector, the approach still occupies a niche. It has a range of obstacles, including those related to performance, cost, production at scale and sustainability.

Croda’s report details that consumer purchasing habits drive the shift from fossil fuels to bio-based ingredients within the personal care sector.By developing novel biotechnology-derived products and biotechnology-derived replacements for those already in use, personal care companies will be better equipped to meet the consumers’ growing demands for performance and sustainability when these barriers can be overcome.

The report details that if the role of biotechnology in innovative product design is to be fully explored within the personal care sector, it should be driven by market demand. The latter necessitates greater involvement from personal care manufacturers at the design stage to ensure consumer expectations are adequately filtered through innovation processes to underpin the next wave of biotechnology-derived products.

Exchanging information and knowledge
This report urges the creation of independent biotechnology and personal care working groups to bring together FMCG producers and suppliers for a more structured information exchange.

Personal care companies can provide the most recent consumer trends, while businesses with biotechnology capabilities can share the most recent scientific and technological advancements in the field.

While it may serve as a platform for establishing business relationships, its primary intention is to provide a secure environment where partners and competitors may cooperate and share knowledge without the threat of losing a competitive advantage.

Additionally, the report adds that government representation in this working group would help ensure that any public investment in, or strategy for, biotechnology is focused on industry growth and economic return.

National funding needed
The report explains that preventing biotechnology from progressing hinders the industry’s growth. For this reason, national public investment is necessary. This goes beyond simply sponsoring sustainable improvements.

Long before conscious consumerism and the desire for a more sustainable way of living emerged, biotechnology processes were in use, the report details.

The report states that national public investment is necessary for biotechnology to flourish in the industry. It has to do with funding a sizable source of potential future innovation. The potential of biotechnology to provide a new toolkit with which to design, build and produce new products and services is what makes it so vital more than any other result of this industry’s rapid growth.

The case for central funding is thus that biotechnology has enormous potential for any economy and serves as a foundation for industry innovation. This will necessitate a coordinated strategy in which all parties can rally behind and participate.

Better strategies would give the fragmented industry greater coherence and focus, as well as greater clarity about the outcomes of a mature world-leading biotechnology sector for any global economy.

Croda propels research
Croda will continue to release reports throughout the series on the use of biotechnology in various industries, including agriculture and home care, after initially concentrating on the personal care market.

Regarding previous biotechnology moves, L’Oréal’s recent annual report unveiled that biotech and eco-solutions “invent the future of beauty.” Meanwhile, Extrait Molecular de Parfum, a new fragrance from US-based Aeir, focuses on using bio-engineered formulas while minimizing the use and extraction of botanicals and lowering carbon footprint.

Edited by Nicole Kerr