Forward thinking for 100 years

COSSMA: This year, Impag is celebrating its 100th anniversary. How did it all begin? 

Remo Bernardi, CEO, Impag Group (RB): It was in 1919, and the circumstances were quite special. After World War I, it was not only very difficult but also expensive to procure chemical raw materials from overseas. This is why a number of textile companies decided to organise themselves by establishing the import company Impag in 1919. Now, one hundred years later, this small trading company has turned into a very specialised service provider. Today, we focus on our core competencies in personal care, nutrition and health, and chemicals.

What have been major milestones in the course of the past 100 years? 

RB: It is fascinating to look back and see how these hundred years have been characterised by both continuity and development. Over the years, our company has opened up new markets, expanded its product portfolio, and extended its services, and thus positioned itself as a well-known, internationally active raw material and solution provider.

What is your company’s strategy for the future, in particular for personal care and home care?

RB: For us, increasing innovative power is key to ensuring our company’s future viability in the digital age. The changes in the economy and the globalisation, in particular along with all the advancements in digital technologies, require  continually redeveloping our business models and services so that we can continue offering our customers solutions with added value. 

We started up Innovendo Lifestyle Technology in 2016, for example, to support the development of innovative projects such as Clixperience at www.clixperience.ch. 

This has opened up opportunities for creating new concepts and products with synergies to our existing fields of activity. 

What, according to you, are the most significant trends in personal care at the moment and why?

Dr Vera Maienschein, Managing Director, Impag Germany: The megatrend Conscious Lifestyle has reached the cosmetics industry. Consumers choose their products according to the motto Be more conscious with your beauty products. Conscious Beauty means that the main focus of the purchase decision is no longer how a product works. The product must be developed and produced in harmony with the environment and in consideration to social and ethical responsibility.

A conscious purchase of cosmetic products includes health and environmental awareness, as well as the complete renunciation of animal testing with well-known ethical claims such as cruelty-free and vegan products. The increasingly popular vegan claim is often combined with the claims organic and free from. The list of raw materials which are no longer popular gets longer and longer. Currently, the sulphate-free label is gaining momentum in Europe and the latest trend is free-of-water cosmetics.

In cosmetics, this trend can be also summarised by the keyword Clean Beauty, but here there is plenty of scope for interpretation. 

The trend towards sustainability is gaining momentum. Environmental awareness in the purchase of beauty products, often called eco-consciousness, involves the products’ origins, the processing of the raw materials as well as the packaging material.

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) has become established as the certification standard for palm-derived cosmetic raw materials. The use of by-products from the food industry, according to the motto too good to waste, is booming. When raw materials are developed based on the traditional knowledge and local availability of plants, end-consumers expect that the ethical and social commitment of the raw material manufacturers are ensured and well-documented. 

What has been your latest innovation in facial care and what makes it so innovative? 

RB: When we founded Innovendo Lifestyle Technology in 2016, we entered a new field of business and launched the new technology Clixperience to keep up with the fast pace of the personal care market. It is a unique carrier system for liquid personal care formulations, and it only takes one click to activate the ready-to-use sheet for all imaginable applications, such as face and eye sheet masks, make-up removers, cleansing care products, and more. 

There are two aspects that make this innovation unique: one is the choice of textile technology for the cloth used in Clixperience; the other is the development of formulations by our Application Laboratory. We make full use of our extensive range of functional raw materials and active ingredients and promote our raw material customers into Clixperience distribution partners. In this way, we offer fully developed ready-to-use products for which the customer only needs to design the label and secondary packaging.

What are the main challenges in the field of distribution and how do you overcome them?

Dr Isabelle Stussi, Managing Director, Impag France: I see future challenges in the accelerating change in market conditions and unforeseeable influences. In order to maintain our strong position despite these changes, we offer our business partners added value in the form of technical expertise, concept solutions, regulatory support and innovation transfer, which brings us as close to the market as possible. 

Also challenging is the growing digital capabilities which increase market transparency as well as the demands on distributors. 

Various IT solutions are being developed on the part of raw material manufacturers, logistics and production companies. The distributor, as an interface in the supply chain, often has to adapt to these digital conditions again and again. Therefore, a constant investment in the IT area is of decisive importance.

What makes you particularly proud when looking back?

RB: 100 years is a number to be proud of! In all this time, our company has stood for its willingness to evaluate and redefine itself continually. We always look for the opportunities in technological change and in the challenging demands of future generations. 

Even in today’s age of digitalisation, we place our focus on the people, and thus on the proximity to employees and business partners. The resulting relationship of trust makes a joint and successful development possible  together unique. 

To accompany an extraordinary team, to feel passion, to experience creativity and to be successful together is a privilege