09.03.18
The Green Chemistry & Commerce Council (GC3) and InnoCentive have revealed the seven winners of the global GC3 Challenge: Developing New Preservatives for Personal Care & Household Products. First launched in April 2017, the challenge aimed to identify and support innovators developing preservative technologies with improved environmental, health and safety profiles for use in cosmetics, personal care and household products.
The GC3 Preservatives Challenge sought submissions on new broad spectrum or single action chemical agents on gram-positive bacteria, gram-negative bacteria, yeast and mold, as well as preservative boosters.
Challenge sponsors and participants represented the entire value chain, with 11 consumer packaged goods companies, two major retailers and five suppliers: Babyganics, Beautycounter, Beiersdorf, Colgate-Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson Consumer, Kao USA, Method – People Against Dirty, Procter & Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser, SC Johnson, Unilever, Target, Walmart, Dow Microbial Control, Lonza, Schülke, Symrise, and Thor, as well as the Environmental Defense Fund and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
The challenge drew 48 submissions that were judged by a panel of expert microbiologists, product formulators, and safety experts from sponsoring CPG companies and others. After the submissions were formulated into three simple products, the preservative technologies were evaluated for safety and efficacy. Innovators received the results from the evaluations and feedback from the judges.
The seven finalists that received portions of the prize pool of $175,000 are:
The GC3 Preservatives Challenge sought submissions on new broad spectrum or single action chemical agents on gram-positive bacteria, gram-negative bacteria, yeast and mold, as well as preservative boosters.
Challenge sponsors and participants represented the entire value chain, with 11 consumer packaged goods companies, two major retailers and five suppliers: Babyganics, Beautycounter, Beiersdorf, Colgate-Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson Consumer, Kao USA, Method – People Against Dirty, Procter & Gamble, Reckitt Benckiser, SC Johnson, Unilever, Target, Walmart, Dow Microbial Control, Lonza, Schülke, Symrise, and Thor, as well as the Environmental Defense Fund and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
The challenge drew 48 submissions that were judged by a panel of expert microbiologists, product formulators, and safety experts from sponsoring CPG companies and others. After the submissions were formulated into three simple products, the preservative technologies were evaluated for safety and efficacy. Innovators received the results from the evaluations and feedback from the judges.
The seven finalists that received portions of the prize pool of $175,000 are:
- 1st Place— Avisco Ltd., IMD Natural Solutions GmbH, Irena Jevtov Research & Innovation, United States Department of Agriculture/People Against Dirty/Berkeley Center for Green Chemistry/University of Victoria/Safer Made;
- 2nd Place—Hydromer, Inc., Russian Academy of Sciences; and
- 3rd Place—Chinova Bioworks.
