GERMANY: Under the motto “a day with our best suppliers,” in December Beiersdorf opened the gates of its R&D operations as part of an internal fair for three longstanding strategic partners in the area of functional raw materials.

“This allows us to give companies with which we have an especially trusting working relationship the opportunity to enter into direct exchange with our researchers to present ideas, concepts and innovations,” explained Dr. Volker Kallmayer, head of raw material scouting, Beiersdorf. “The first event was already a complete success both for us and for our partners. More than 200 of our researchers learned a lot through intensive discussions and tried out samples brought by our partners. There have already been many requests made to exhibitors for formulas that are of interest for our innovation pipeline.”

The first Supplier Fair focused on special cosmetic textures and promising trends in skin care.

“We are excited how well prepared our partners were for this day and how many ideas and formulas specially tailored to our brands and consumers they brought with them. Our employees in turn spoke very openly about innovation ideas and concrete questions. This made it possible to further deepen our already close collaboration and we are very confident that with this bundled innovation power we will be able to surprise consumers all over the world with attractive products.”

Beiersdorf is planning a second Supplier Fair with additional close strategic partners for 2016.