With a 25% yearly increase in its sales of hygiene and cleaning chemicals since being established in 2009, hygiene solutions company Branson Chemicals expects to sustain growth by at least 20% a year to become a major force across all the markets in which it operates.

Branson Chemicals director Gerald Brown notes that there has been growth in the institutional, food and beverage industries, as well as in dairy plants, specifically the dairy farm sector, in which the company is leading the market.

“In correlation with Branson’s rapid expansion, the manufacturing and sales staff complement has grown sixfold and the company has a nationwide network of more than 20 agents specialising in the dairy farm industry,” he adds.

Subsequently, the company has also moved to a custom-built manufacturing and office facility in Cosmo Business Park, north of Randburg, in March this year. The new premises – 1 700 m² of production space and 350 m² of administration offices, including a fully equipped laboratory – is quadruple the size of Branson’s previous premises.

The company offers more than 100 products and cleaning programs, which are developed in-house. The fully equipped microbiological laboratory can do hygiene audits, whereby sample swabs of customer sites are incubated and are in line with sanitation standards.

Brown points out that a favoured Branson product is the portion-controlled dishwashing machine detergent, which is available in a concentrated solid-cast format.

“It is definitely the future for this industry, as the major advantage of using this product is proven savings because of reduced wastage. We are also planning to establish a dishwasher rental programme for the hospitality industry, the machines of which we supply and maintain to enable our clients in the food and beverage sector to concentrate on making food.”

Branson Chemicals is introducing specialised pressure-washing machines – which can either be mobile or remain fixed to one position – to the food and beverage sector for the high- volume cleaning and sanitising of plant facilities.

“Our short-term goal is to aggressively expand into the food and beverage, hospitality, healthcare and institutional industries, hence, the development of our product offering in these markets,” he adds.

Branson Chemicals has also formed an alliance with a specialist group to develop the water-care market in Africa for the processing, food and beverage and general industries.

Brown is adamant that the company, as the second-largest chemicals supplier to the airline catering industry, will continue to produce hygienic solutions and products for various industries, further expanding the company’s growth prospects.