On Tuesday, environmentally sustainable e-commerce company Grove Collaborative and its sister site Roven Beauty debuted a new bar soap brand intended to show that sustainability can be fun.
The new brand, called Peach, launches with 10 bars across shampoo, conditioner, face, hands and body, for under $13 each. The bars come in vibrant colors like blush pink, fuchsia and turquoise, and in shapes including triangles. Phrases like “Fresh face, fresh take” are imprinted on them. With its concentrated formulas that lack water and its no-plastic packaging, Peach is designed to reduce overall waste. According to the brand, one Peach shampoo bar equates to two 8.5-ounce shampoo bottles, and one conditioner bar equates to three 8.5-ounce conditioner bottles.
Luana Bumachar, Grove Collaborative vp of owned brand and innovation, said that brands and companies like Grove Collaborative and Unilever-owned Love, Beauty and Planet have done a lot to reduce plastic waste in the home-care space, but that bathroom and personal care products have received less attention.
“It’s really hard to reduce plastic waste in personal care, as there are not many plastic-free options out there,” said Bumachar. “Around 60% of [Grove Collaborative] consumers are interested in plastic-free options, but they don’t know what to use.”
Both Roven and Grove are aimed at targeting young families in states like Tennessee, Utah, Idaho and Georgia, which are often overlooked by the beauty industry. Prior to Oct. 2019 when Grove Collaborative launched Roven Beauty as a clean beauty e-commerce site, the 8-year-old company had not focused on beauty and personal care products. Beauty has proved to be a popular category, said Stuart Landesberg, Grove Collaborative founder and CEO, explaining that beauty is the fastest-growing category in Grove’s business, having grown 301% year-over-year in sales, between Grove and Roven. Since Oct. 2019, there have been 39 private-label and brand partners added to the sites, and beauty now represents 30% of Grove’s overall assortment between the two sites, he said.
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Grove Collaborative has over 2 million subscribers and raised a $150 million Series D round of funding in Sept. 2019. The company earned $104 million in 2018 sales and sends out over 450,000 shipments of refillable household products per month, according to previous Glossy reporting. Landesberg declined to provide updates on sales and growth figures, only saying 2020 is a “big growth year.” Landesberg added that Peach’s low price point is strategically aimed at getting people to buy into the sustainable brand and then expand beyond that into other sustainable products or categories from Peach and Grove Collaborative.
“People are looking for affordable ways to try new routines, and products in the range [of $10-$30] allow the consumer to do that,” said Landesberg. “It’s about finding the first low-risk change they can make, and if that product delivers the goods, they’ll be back to try something else.”
Bumachar and Landesberg both confirmed that Roven Beauty would be undergoing some changes, with Bumachar saying that it would be renamed Grove Beauty at the end of November. Landesberg indicated a relaunch would be to better align the two sister-sites as part of Grove Collaborative but declined to share more details. At the time of its launch in Oct. 2019, Roven was expected to account for 50% of the overall company’s sales, according to previous Glossy reporting. Roven also opened a flagship store in Venice, Calif. in Oct. 2019, which permanently closed in the first quarter of 2020.
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Peach’s launch campaign includes videos, unpaid social posts on its own accounts, mobile SMS text messaging and email marketing featuring swipe-up posts, how-to videos, user testimonials and social media giveaways, said Bumachar.
“Choosing to live sustainably doesn’t have to be serious,” she said. “Peach is fun and tackles sustainability with a fun approach. We wanted to bring optimism and cheerfulness to this space, and by doing that, we’re going to encourage consumers to come along that sustainable journey with us.”
