We are a dynamic international organization whose principal business is building brand franchises in categories where we can best use our core strengths. Our products provide excellent value for consumers, and are sold primarily in grocery stores and other retail outlets in many parts of the world. Our line of domestic retail products includes many of the country's best known brands of laundry additives, home cleaning and automotive appearance products, cat litters, insecticides, charcoal briquets, salad dressings, sauces, water filtration systems.
The great majority of our products either lead or are a strong second in their categories. Although best known for the household bleach that bears the firm's name, The Clorox Company is a diversified international manufacturer and marketer of a variety of consumer products ranging from household cleaners to salad dressings and from insecticides to cat litter. The company's professional products unit manufactures and markets cleaning and food products for institutional and professional markets and the food-service industry.
About 16 percent of Clorox's sales are derived outside the United States through marketing channels in more than 70 countries. Clorox was founded in as the Electro-Alkaline Company by five Oakland, California-area businessmen, only one of whom had any knowledge of chemistry.
Their objective was to convert brine from ocean water into sodium hypochlorite bleach using an electrolytic process considered to be technologically advanced for its time. The company's first product, Clorox liquid bleach, was packaged in five-gallon returnable containers and delivered by horse-drawn wagon to local breweries, dairies, and laundries for cleaning and disinfecting their facilities.
Labels for the new product identified it as being "made by electricity. The company struggled through its early years and often depended upon personal loans from its directors to pay expenses. In a less concentrated liquid bleach product percent sodium hypochlorite instead of 21 percent--for household use was developed and sold in amber glass pint bottles.
William C. Murray, the company's general manager, came up with the idea of producing and promoting household bleach. Murray's wife, Annie, gave away samples of the formula to customers of the family's Oakland-based grocery store. Its value as a laundry aid, stain remover, deodorant, and disinfectant was also promoted by door-to-door salespeople who demonstrated how a solution of Clorox bleach and water could whiten an ink-stained piece of fabric.
Orders were collected on the spot and then given to local grocers who purchased the necessary inventory from the company to fulfill them. Small and local at the time, Clorox was not affected by World War I. In the s Clorox's manufacturing plant could produce about 2, cases, or 48, bottles of bleach per day. Assembly line workers filled bottles by hand using hoses attached to overhead tanks.
After being filled, the bottles were sealed with rubber stoppers and labeled, also by hand. As demand for Clorox household bleach grew, the company expanded its manufacturing and distribution capabilities nationwide. By the early s Clorox had become the best-selling liquid bleach in the country.
The company was known by its amber glass bleach bottle, which continued to be used with minor adaptations in size and design until the early s, when Clorox became the first bleach manufacturer to use plastic containers. In Murray became president of Clorox Chemical Company, a name that had replaced the company's original name in Share on Facebook. Marc Zorn. Who Invented Ranch Dressing.
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Video October 21, Home About Disclaimer Contact Us. Pin It on Pinterest. The young venture was near collapse when William and Annie Murray came to the rescue. He streamlined operations and arranged new financing. We were still The Electro-Alkaline Company then, hardly a catchy handle. By the company was ready to go public on the San Francisco Stock Exchange.
Fifteen years earlier, almost no one had heard of bleach. Now thousands of investors clamored to buy shares in Clorox. Embracing multiculturalism, we gave out pamphlets that explained the home uses of Clorox bleach in French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish and Yiddish.
Vendor loyalty is important to Clorox. In fact, some of our relationships with food brokers are more than 90 years strong. In its first recorded act of corporate giving, the company donates funds to the Boy Scouts of America. The company reorganizes in Delaware as Clorox Chemical Company and goes public. It issues , shares of common stock, traded on the San Francisco Stock Exchange.
Not even the Great Depression could stop the growth of the Clorox Chemical Company, as we were known then. An early believer in equal opportunities, we welcomed women workers not just in the office but on the manufacturing line. LouLou Johnson, a single mother hired in , personified the loyalty that still characterizes our associates. She claimed that she corked bottles even in her sleep! Our namesake product was bottled in glass containers until the early s.
A talent for working in teams has always been a company asset. Company lawyers successfully demanded the renaming of copycats such as Chlorox, Chlor-Sol, Klorax and Lurox. Clorox was a model corporate citizen in World War II. Our employees worked hour weeks to help the war effort. A Clorox job meant a military deferment for male workers who wanted it, because bleach-making was an essential industry. Bleach was so valuable that it was rationed.
The U. Bleach earned its exalted wartime status because it could disinfect wounds, neutralize enemy gases and purify water — the same timeless usages that apply in all disaster scenarios. The Clorox 2 color-safe bleach brand was revitalized in and through the relaunch of Clorox 2 liquid bleach as a concentrate and with the debut of Floral Fresh dry and liquid formulas.
In the long run, Sullivan's emphasis on international growth was perhaps the most important aspect of his multi-pronged revitalization program.
During the early s, Clorox derived only 4 percent of its net sales outside the United States. Sullivan created an international team to tackle overseas markets and set an ambitious goal of deriving a full 20 percent of sales from these markets by By Clorox was well on its way to meeting this goal as international sales reached 14 percent. Much of this growth was fueled through acquisitions, particularly in Latin America, where the company was able to quickly gain half of the bleach markets in Argentina and Colombia and 90 percent of the bleach market in Chile.
Of course, not everything went smoothly in the mids. In September the company recalled and stopped production of QuickSilver, an automotive wheel-cleaning product gained via the Armor All acquisition, after it was blamed for the death of a Canadian child. Based in Danbury, Connecticut, First Brands was best known for its Glad plastic wraps and trash bags.
Yet Clorox acquired First Brands at an inauspicious time. Plastic costs were rising, and the company was in the midst of a heavy advertising and promotional campaign for a new line of GladWare plastic containers.
At the same time, Glad's market share was on the decline because of intense competition, particularly with the entrance of cheaper, no-name brands into the category.
Over the next few years, Clorox struggled to integrate the First Brands products into its portfolio, and both its revenues and profits stagnated; the price of its stock fell to less than half of its peak in fiscal Some observers laid part of the blame on the decision to fire a large portion of First Brands' managers shortly after the takeover. In addition to its difficulties with the First Brands acquisition, Clorox also suffered in the early s from the general economic downturn and from failed product introductions, such as its FreshCare home dry-cleaning kit, which debuted in March and was pulled off the market in the fall of An initial success but another ultimate failure was the Clorox ReadyMop mopping system, an all-in-one wet mop with disposable cleaning pads that debuted in early To improve profitability, Clorox cut costs through layoffs and plant closings.
The firm also tightened its focus on core brands, divesting peripheral ones, including Jonny Cat litter and Black Flag insecticide, both off-loaded in Johnston in July and as chairman by Robert W.
Matschullat in January Under Johnston, Clorox began adopting a higher public profile than it did under the publicity-shy Sullivan, and the new leader also placed great emphasis on investing in research and development and technology to produce innovative new products. A second hit product coming out of the Glad joint venture was Glad ForceFlex trash bags, which debuted in These bags were embossed with a unique diamond-shaped quilted pattern that allowed the plastic to stretch and thereby be less likely to tear under pressure from sharp or heavy objects.
These two Glad products were part of Johnston's drive to develop "game-changers," products that would enable Clorox to dominate certain categories. Most of these heavily-and creatively-promoted new products, including Clorox disinfecting wipes, Armor All wipes, and the Clorox ToiletWand, were successes.
Another innovative new product that found a ready market was the Clorox Bleach Pen, a penlike tool that made it easier for a user to control the application of bleach and that was able to remove stains on a variety of surfaces. Another significant development during this period occurred in November when Clorox's relationship with Henkel came to an end. Linked since , the two companies had developed certain technologies together but had never actually jointly produced any commercial products.
Henkel elected to divest its 29 percent stake in Clorox in order to help finance its acquisition of Dial Corporation. Late in , with soaring energy prices driving up the costs of raw materials, transportation, and utilities, Clorox announced plans to raise prices on 40 percent of its products. Clorox continued to roll out new products and back them and existing products with creative advertising campaigns, but Johnston, the architect of Clorox's turnaround, suffered a heart attack in March , went on leave, and then retired two months later to focus on recovering.
Matschullat was named interim chairman and CEO, while the company conducted a search for a successor. South Africa ; Clorox Argentina S. Costa Rica ; Clorox Chile S. Mexico ; Clorox de Mexico, S.
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