5 big issues when formulating organic

Belinda Carli, 09/07/2021

Big Issue #1: Marketing claims

There are already a variety of ‘organic’ and ‘natural’ products in the market place – so if you want to launch or build your organic brand, how are you going to make sure you stand out? Even more importantly are the number of brands claiming to be organic or natural or have organic or natural in their branding… yet they contain relatively little organic content.

A consumer can’t always tell the difference. If you want to make ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ your main claims, then you need to be certified. All certifiers have different rules, so you need to determine at the start which certifier is best going to suit your needs in terms of their rules and global coverage.

You also need to remember that to comply with organic rules, your formulas need to be very carefully constructed and contain a certain input of naturally derived and organic ingredients – how is your brand going to be different to another brand that is also certified organic and follows these principles? Just having organic extracts, essential oils and plant oils is not going to give you a strong enough point of difference compared to organic brands out there, so think carefully how you are going to market your point of difference against competitors with certified organic products, and competitors who make organic claims but aren’t certified. It is the reality of what you will face, so be prepared!

Big issue #2: Price

Organic products cost more to produce because of the raw materials, manufacturer’s certification and your organisation’s certification. Consumers might try an organic product once to feel ‘green’, but if they don’t like the product, they won’t repeat purchase. Make sure your products have a suitable price on the shelf: they should be priced well against your competitors, but must give you sufficient profit margin to continue growth in the early years and realise profits later on.

You might need to compromise on some very expensive essential oils to meet your required price point. You might also need to compromise on expensive packaging as you will need to put more of the money into the product, its manufacture and registration/compliance than the bottle it is packed in. You need to make sure your products will be priced to sell in this extremely competitive environment and have a good point of difference otherwise you won’t get distribution, and won’t get those necessary sales. Be careful with ingredient selection because you are dealing with more expensive materials to begin with – you might need to give a little on your ideal ingredients to make sure you have a competitively priced product instead.

Big issue #3: Certifier compliance

Different certifiers have different rules as to what products they certify can and can’t contain. They also have different proportions of required organic, natural and naturally derived content. Therefore, you must decide upfront which certifier you are going to use, and use only their rules when formulating. You can’t change your mind later otherwise it could mean partial or full re-developments! You should discuss this with your R&D department or formulator, because some certifiers are too restrictive with preservative selection, for example, and a poorly preserved product is not suitable to be placed on the market.

Choose a certifier that is going to enable you to incorporate a suitable point of difference. You don’t want to use a certifier that is going to restrict your developments to be exactly like your competitors, otherwise you won’t get distribution or sales!

Some products you want to create simply can’t be achieved if you want to be certified organic. Water proof, styling and very high SPF products, for example, can’t achieve organic compliance requirements and provide the level of performance required to be commercially saleable. You will need to discuss your product concepts with your R&D department or formulator first to see if the product can exist, and then be prepared to compromise on performance or aesthetics later compared to other products commercially available using synthetic ingredients. 

Big issue #4: Stability

Formulating organic products means you can only use the approved ingredients the certifier allows, and then must also stick within certain input % of organic, natural and naturally derived content. This can make it hard to stabilise formulas over a prolonged shelf life, but is essential to achieve for export regulatory purposes and for consumer acceptance. You will need to discuss these types of issues with your R&D department or formulator and be prepared for more extensive R&D and stability programs to ensure a good shelf life before going to market – trying to skimp on R&D or stability testing is not a good idea when it comes to ensuring quality organic products. It’s hard enough to get distribution and sales once you are out there – you don’t want to jeopardise your brand by not having done your stability homework before you hit the marketplace!

Big issue #5: Suitable aesthetics

Being limited to organic, natural and naturally derived ingredients means you may need to compromise on skin feel too. Many semi-synthetic or synthetic ingredients have been modified to be performance or aesthetic enhancing. You may need to discuss this with your R&D department or formulator and be more flexible with required aesthetics to enable a suitably commercial but certified organic product to be created. For example, there is currently limited replacements for the skin or hair feel created by a volatile silicone, so trying to replicate this skin feel and performance attributed in a certified organic product can only ever get as close as a suitably approved ester; but there will still be significant and noticeable differences in the end product. The same applies with surfactants – you just won’t get the same hair cleansing and conditioning performance from a certified organic product as what is achieved using semi-synthetic products.

If being certified organic is of most importance to you, then be prepared to accept less than your ideal aesthetics on a product – sometimes it simply cannot be achieved whilst maintaining organic compliance. If you really want something that feels exceptional and is certified organic, then be prepared for more R&D time as more samples are prepared and tested in trying to achieve your ideal.