Cosmetic Innovation: hair color factory
Mazzaferro invests more than R$ 5 million in hair color factory
In just three years, Color Charts reached 50% of market share.
Mazzaferro, a company with 65 years in the nylon segment, does not stop growing and innovating. And, Mazzaferro Monofilaments is the one that stands out the most in this regard. The unit has identified a number of opportunities to expand its scope of operations, moving from commodities to the niche economy, offering products and services with higher added value. One of the best examples of this strategic revision is the business unit Color Charts, a manufacturer of coloring plates for hair dyeing.
The company decided to map this market and visited 80% of the hair color manufacturers. There, it identified that 80% of the cartridges were imported, with very high lead time and high cost, making this product, which is a fundamental part for the sale of hair color, unviable. It was then that the company decided to invest heavily to become the most productive and reliable supplier of color palettes for hair dyeing in Latin America, offering a competent and complete service of graphic creation, which stands out for the quality of the product, personalized service and delivery.
The company has been working on this project since 2014, and today already has a 50% market share. Logically, the path was not simple. To enter a previously unknown market, Mazzaferro needed to invest heavily in knowledge. The company kept seven professionals from the finance, commercial, engineering, maintenance, design, production and coloring areas for three months in Italy, in the city of Magenta. The objective was to transfer technology and know how from the chosen partner. “It was a very enriching experience. We operated their plant at the same time we were building ours”, remembers the CFO, Wesley Ortolani. More than R$ 5 million was invested between the exchange of knowledge and the assembly of the plant. The plant is inside the Monofilamentos unit, in São Paulo, and occupies 2 of the 16 thousand square meters of the manufacturing complex. Between the pre-marketing and the inauguration of the plant were only nine months.
Mazzaferro has been in the nylon business for more than six decades and this expertise allowed the creation of a smooth yarn, with a very soft touch, without twist, similar to human hair, which today already has more than 600 options of base colors. By mixing them, it is possible to achieve an infinite number of shades. “Literally, we have a thread as one of the pillars for the success of this unit, which in this case was registered under the name of Swatch Monofilament, which means mecha in English,” he says. This is an important, but not the only competitive differential. Contrary to all other competitors, who depend on yarn imports from other continents, Swatch yarns are already produced in their base colors and do not require dyeing after they are ready. “This mass-dyed extrusion process, as it is called, has a quality that is clearly superior, more faithful to the color and with a controlled future reproduction,” he guarantees.
Another added value much admired by customers is the fact that Mazzaferro conducts the cartel project as a whole, from the layout creation process to the finished product. “The cards are very important for a color manufacturer. The brand needs to be very well presented in this indispensable sales tool, both in the hands of distributors and at points of sale, such as perfumeries and pharmacies. It is also a powerful source of technical content for the professional, because it carries a lot of information about active ingredients, mixtures, color height, among others of fundamental importance for the professional. To ensure this level of competence, our professionals are constantly trained in Italy,” he explains. The customized design also makes a difference. Everything is specifically thought out for each client, with minimalist and modern features, connecting the essence of each one to their product. That is why companies such as L’Oréal, Wella and Embeleze are among the more than 150 clients of all sizes, from North to South of Brazil.
In addition to the cartels, the company has created several other products, such as gondola, counter or wall displays customized for each client. “Often, when it comes to a launch, our designers do the artwork design for the dye tube, the packaging, and even the launch campaign pieces,” Ortoloni boasts. In recent months, Color Charts launched the beard cartridge, due to the great growth of this sector in Brazil and in the world. There is also the sensorial tech fragrance card, where it is possible to feel the scent of the coloring. The Smart line, with QR Code, connects customers through social networks with the educational content of each brand. The latest launch was the Sliding Chart, a card with a sliding system, 100% recyclable, developed for hypermarkets, drugstores, and perfumeries.
Currently, 35 thousand cards are manufactured per month. From these, 38% are already destined to Latin American countries, such as Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Chile, and even to the main beauty market in the world, the United States. The growth is accelerated. In 2017, a 51% increase in revenue was recorded compared to 2016. The same is expected in 2018. In three years, the goal is to triple. The payback of this investment was approximately two years, and in June this year the company invested another 700,000 reais in increasing the capacity in the production of rovings and finishing of the tampographic system. “We stand out for the quality of the product, the pre and post sales service, and the short lead time. We are confident in the progressive growth of this business unit,” Ortolani concludes.
Published in Cosmetic Innovation website on August 9th, 2018:
cosmeticinnovation.com.br/mazzaferro-investe-mais-de-r-5-milhoes-em-fabrica-de-mechas-de-cabelo
