Clean and green Drylock Technologies

CLEAN AND GREEN

It’s easy to use the word ‘innovation’, but for Bart Van Malderen at Drylock Technologies, innovation is a way of life. As the founder of a company that is a true pioneer in hygiene products, Mr Van Malderen spoke to Emma-Jane Batey to explain how his passion for clean, green, effective products is seeing great results.

Founded by Bart Van Malderen in 2011, Drylock Technologies has over 100 years of management and production experience in developing high quality, high performance hygiene products. With a proven track record in the personal hygiene industry, Mr Van Malderen launched the company after seeing a fantastic opportunity that was not being maximised. He said, “As previous owner of Ontex I have been involved basically all my life in hygiene disposables and then sold to concentrate on other areas of my life. But I became aware of an exciting opportunity for a fluff-free product and felt that other companies in the industry were not making the most of the potential innovation. So I gathered together a group of my old colleagues and we launched Drylock in order to bring something really fresh to the hygiene products market.”

With a dedication to creating and manufacturing hygiene products that are ecologically responsible and performance focused, Drylock has developed a portfolio of feminine care products, baby products and incontinence products that are all made with the consumer – and the environment – in mind. Mr Van Malderen continued, “Right from the start our vision has been to provide hygiene products of the future, today. We achieve this by combining our strong customer focus with product innovation and manufacturing excellence which allows us to reliably provide truly revolutionary products.”

Dry goods

The Drylock product portfolio's flagship range is the 'original fluff-less technology' baby nappy (or diaper). The ultra-absorbing, ultra-thin nappy is comfortable and reliable, with the technology adaptable to feminine hygiene products and incontinence products. Mr Van Malderen explained, “The Drylock revolutionary technology makes for the thinnest, best performance diaper on the market. It offers an integrated fluid manage-

CJSC ‘Regent Nonwoven Materials’ is one of the biggest producers of spunmelt nonwoven materials made from 100% polypropylene in the Russian and CIS territories.

www.spunbond.ru

Equipped with two advanced German Reicofil lines, the company produces a broad range of multilayer spunbond (SS, SSS) as well as SMS specifications designed for the hygiene sector and other industries, under the trademark ‘NEOTEX’.

Owing to its outstanding quality and convenient location (south of Moscow, on the crossroads of key highways) the company has good access to different markets in Russia and abroad.

Since 2008, when its first production line was put into operation, Regent Nonwoven Materials has grown into a reliable and trustworthy partner with a continuously expanding customer base. Both leading Russian producers and global multinational companies choose Regent Nonwoven Materials as their main supplier of spunbond materials.

Thanks to its state-of-the-art machines, professional and experienced team and modern laboratory equipment, the company is able to successfully supply material to some of the most demanding customers in Russia and abroad. Material specifications can be customised according to clients’ individual requirements, including the possibility to provide higher barrier properties, improved tensile/elongation parameters, and in some cases to develop materials that match customers’ existing equipment.

For the hygiene segment, Regent NM has developed a specific type of material with improved tactile properties, including ‘soft-touch’, ‘silk-touch’ and ‘soft special touch’.

Since 2014 Regent Nonwoven Materials has been one of the main suppliers of spunbond material and a strategic partner to Drylock’s Russian plant in Nizny Novgorod.

There are strong prospects for the future of this cooperation as it is supported by stability and constant technological development from Regent NM’s side, and steady enhancement and product improvement from Drylock’ side.

Processfilter

For Drylock we supplied a FCF-filter unit as we know that the operating cost of this specific filter type is very low. Maintenance costs are, compared to other solutions, almost zero and emission level in this specific case was far below 1 mg/Nm3 of air. This makes sure that Drylock can have full production all the time - FCF filter units can be trusted to give less down time in the production due to filter problems.

ment system and has continually gained high scores across a number of comparison tests with various US and European brands.”

The Drylock fluff-less nappy offers a number of benefits including a total reduction of cellulose – because there is zero per cent cellulose in the nappy – saving millions of trees each year compared with standard nappies. Its glue-less core also saves tons of chemicals as well as providing a safer, cleaner environment for consumers. In addition to this, it is very compact, making it a very comfortable product for the baby and a more intuitive product for the parent. Mr Van Malderen added, “On a practical level, the compactness also saves a fortune on transport costs – both for fuel and in ecological terms – as well as saving on packaging material required and associated warehousing requirements.”

Drylock specializes in the production of retail brands for most of Europe’s leading large scale retailers, but also has a full assortment of babydiapers under its own brands ‘Magics’ as well as inco products under the ‘Dailee’ brand in its assortment. With a long-term focus on fluff-free and fluff-less products, Drylock is perfectly in tune with the emerging trends of the hygiene product sectors, with its sustainable, high-performance balance being met across the range. Mr Van Malderen said, “Drylock Technologies is well-known across Europe and Asia as the pioneering fluff-less diaper company. As we grow and develop into the feminine products and incontinence products sectors, we can integrate this advanced knowledge of absorbency, comfort and sustainability into an ever-increasing portfolio.”

Small is big

With its headquarters in Zele in Belgium and two further production sites in Hradek nad Nisou in the Czech Republic and Nizhny Novgorod in Russia, Drylock Technologies is well-positioned to continue its upward trajectory in the coming years. Each site is sustainably built and operated and is packed with state-of-the-art technology and the capacity for expansion, allowing for its potential in branded goods and private label goods to be reached smoothly.

Mr Van Malderen concluded, “2015 is certainly going to be a big year for us. We have everything in place to be able to continue to succeed – the technology, the customers and the experience. We are now offering three full product lines with feminine products, incontinence products and our famous diapers. We have a powerful strategy in place for growth and we do not exclude acquisitions. We already work with many of the biggest retailers across 28 countries in the EU, as well as Russia and China, and we expect to grow stronger in the US this year too. Our products are perfect for supporting retailers' sustainability programmes too, and with each of our three core product areas performing solidly and reliably, we know that Drylock Technologies is in a very strong position for excellent results in 2015 and beyond.” n