Capsules

The project specific objective is to jointly develop a laundry washing capsule containing organic essential oils in a water-soluble film. The organic essential oils are extracted from locally grown plants. Their use will allow replacing the synthetic chemicals currently used in laundry washing capsules, thus adding real value to the product as harmful impacts on the environment are reduced. The project has been designed with durability in mind. Both companies expect that customers will increasingly demand local and organically made household products. The use of organically grown local plants reduces the consumption of synthetic chemicals while encapsulating them in water-soluble film decreases produced waste . Both companies are leaders in their fields, thus maximising the financial and institutional sustainability of project results. As the jointly developed product is a specialised consumable, it is crucial that the companies have capacity to meet the demand. Experimental development activities will produce an experimental batch of goods in real life conditions to identify and correct any inefficiencies. Available land resources in Latvia allows to expand its growing and harvesting operations. The post-project objective (5 years after project completion) is to export the jointly developed product across Europe to a target group of 10 million persons.

New product development is composed of 2 main activities:  

• Industrial research will be used to acquire new knowledge and skills required for the development of the joint product.
• Experimental development will prototype, pilot, test and validate the new product in real-life operating conditions and will result in the production of one test batch of laundry capsules. 

Marketing activities include development of the marketing strategy and materials to generate product demand.