As personal health takes top priority, companies are increasingly focussing on hygiene products or widening their existing offerings to include such products. Paint companies have now launched sanitisers adding to their existing portfolio of hygiene products such as odour free paints, anti-viral and anti-bacterial decorative paints. Most, including Asian Paints, Berger Paints, Nippon Paint and JSW Paints have introduced sanitisers, personal protective equipment and sanitising services as part of their hygiene and wellness portfolio.

Health and wellness portfolio

In the wake of Covid-19 pandemic, hygiene paint products have gained importance.

For instance, Asian Paints was able to sell products such as Royale Health Shield better in its recent June quarter. Similarly, Nippon Paint too has seen increasing preference towards its hygiene paint products such as odour-free paints, anti-bacterial paints and other variants. It is also planning to launch anti-viral paints. JSW Paints too offers anti-bacterial paints for all surfaces at home walls, wood and metal.

With the pandemic highlighting the need for personal hygiene and home sanitisation, paint makers have also forayed into manufacturing of hand sanitisers and disinfectants as per WHO norms.

AS Sundaresan, CEO of JSW Paints says “As there was a need for hygiene products soon after the outbreak of pandemic, JSW Paints was quickly able to manufacture sanitisers, as it has similarities to manufacturing paints.” The company had launched Securall hand sanitiser in 500 ml pack size, manufactured from its facility at Vasind in Maharashtra.

Asian Paints too manufactured Viroprotek, a range of hand sanitisers and surface disinfectants from its Ankleshwar, Gujarat, plant. It also introduced sanitising service San Assure pan India.

Berger Paints has launched BreathEasy+ hand sanitisers. It also plans to enter into the home hygiene segment as an extension of the BreatheEasy+ brand. Nippon Paint in addition to hand sanitiser and disinfectant, has entered into a range of personal protective equipment (PPEs) such as gloves and facemasks under the Medifresh brand.

S Mahesh Anand, President, Nippon Paint (India) pvt ltd (decorative division) says “Before starting a painting work, painters require a list of items which usually includes paint, primer, putty and other stuff like emery sheets, brush and waste cloth. Now, going ahead, sanitisers, face masks and gloves will become an integral part of the list.”

Distribution network

Paint companies have extensive dealer network for the distribution of paints across the country. This comes in handy for the distribution of the personal hygiene and protective equipment as well.

Nippon’s PPE product range, for instance, is primarily aimed at its painter community. President of Nippon India, Anand says “A normal customer will not come to hardware or paint-selling shops for hygiene and protective gears but a painter will definitely buy from these stores. We have about 35-50 lakh painters and it was necessary to offer them protection”. The company has about 7,000 retail outlets spread across the country. Its sanitisers and PPEs product range is offered, for now, only for internal consumption and not for public.

On the other hand, Asian Paints’ Viroprotek, a range of hand and surface sanitisers are available in various pack sizes for public consumption.

Similarly, JSW Paints’ Securall is available for public use as well. In order to support the Securall roll-out, JSW Group will leverage its retail distribution network across paints, steel and cement businesses.

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