St. Paul, MN
www.ecolab.com

Sales: $4.8 billion for institutional cleaning products. Corporate sales: $13.8 billion.

Key Personnel: Douglas M. Baker Jr., chairman and chief executive officer; Thomas W. Handley, president and chief operating officer; Daniel J. Schmechel, chief financial officer and treasurer; Timothy P. Mulhere, executive vice president and president, global enterprise efficiency; Anil Arcalgud, executive vice president and chief information officer; Larry Berger, executive vice president and chief technology officer; Alex Blanco, executive vice president and chief supply chain officer; Angela Busch, senior vice president, corporate development; Laurie Marsh, executive vice president, human resources; Nicholas Alfano, executive vice president and general manager, global foods & beverage; Christophe Beck, executive vice president and president, global industrial; Arjan Boogaards, senior vice president and president, Middle East & Africa; Paul Chaffin, senior vice president and general manager, global healthcare; Terry Gallagher, senior vice president and president, Latin America; Michael A. Hickey, executive vice president and president, global institutional; Roberto D. Mendez, executive vice president and president, global services and specialty; Sean Toohey, executive vice president, Asia Pacific; Steve Taylor, strategy; Andreas Weilinghoff, executive vice president, global textile care; Jill Wyant, executive vice president and president, global regions and global healthcare; Connell Zhang, executive vice president and president, Greater China.

Major Products: Cleaning and sanitizing products and services for the industrial and institutional markets.

New Products: EHT dishmachine, SmartPower warewashing, Hand Hygiene Compliance Monitoring System, Health Department Intelligence platform, Legionella water safety management program; Laboratoires Anios (acquisition).

Comments: Corporate sales rose 5% last year. Sales of institutional cleaning products increased more than 6%.

Last year, Ecolab made several acquisitions in the I&I category. In February, Ecolab acquired Laboratoires Anios, a European manufacturer of hygiene and disinfectant products to the healthcare market, with sales of $245 million in 2016. According to Ecolab, Anios provides an innovative product line that expands the solutions the company is able to offer, while also providing a complementary geographic footprint within the healthcare market. In December, it bought Arpal, a cleaning and sanitizing chemical business with sales of $20 million and a presence in the UK and Middle East. The same month, Ecolab bought three regional pest control firms with combined annual sales of $36 million.

Gains in institutional cleaning sales at the regional level were led by North America; the company noted that global lodging demand continued to show moderate growth while global full service restaurant industry foot traffic remained weak, particularly in North America. Ecolab maintains that business gains remain robust, driven by improved service coverage, new product innovations, additional customer solutions and a continued focus among its customers on food safety as fresh products become more prevalent and require more cleaning.

But regardless of the category, Ecolab these days, is more about selling knowledge than soap suds. Several of its newest innovations, including SmartPower and Health Department Intelligence platform, revolve around monitoring and collecting data to help customers operate more efficiently.

For the first quarter, corporate sales rose 10% to nearly $3.5 billion. Institutional sales rose 9% to more than $1.2 billion, led by gains pricing and volume in North America and Asia Pacific.