COMPANY FOCUS
Made local, sold global Bio-Oil is one of South Africa’s most iconic skin care brands. Although its beginning was humble, over the past 32 years the brand has taken the world by storm. Abby Vorster shares Union Swiss’ story of how it's grown from a team of three to employing 200 people and transitioned from using a contract manufacturer to manufacturing Bio-Oil in-house.
Bio-Oil products filled and packed on a highly automated Marchesini line
the packaging and raw materials at no cost to Columbia. Guided by Frank Beetge, Columbia’s managing director, we integrated ourselves into production, spec’d machinery and made it our purpose to nurture Bio-Oil into the successful and versatile brand we believed it could be.’
Focused on skin care R&D
I
There are many more reasons why the n 2000, brothers
brand is so successful. The company
David and Justin
is a R&D skin care business and true
Letschert purchased Union Swiss. The company manufactured 120
products under 10 brand names, the majority of which they sold off by 2002 to focus on Bio-Oil as a core product. At the time, both David and Justin were chartered accountants with no experience in manufacturing skin care products. But their passion, drive and
We are not driven by profit; we only want to research and develop better products
outsource multinational. Union Swiss is also not driven by profit – instead the company has always focused on researching and developing better products for the global skin care market. ‘Bio-Oil has only ever launched products better than those currently on the market. We could have launched
sound financial backgrounds provided
where the brothers had an office and
hundreds of “me-too” products under
a solid foundation from which to
maintained a hands-on approach.
the Bio-Oil brand name, but we didn’t.
catapult Bio-Oil into rapid success.
‘This model was unlike any other
We are not driven by profit; we only
relationship between a brand owner
want to research and develop better
model, contract manufacturing Bio-
and their contract manufacturer,’
products. That’s the Bio-Oil brand,’
Oil at Columbia Pharmaceuticals
David explains. ‘We purchased all
reveals Justin.
They opted for a hybrid business
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| SEPTEMBER 2019 | P C Review
