The company has recently started a trial operation of a plant cultivation test facility at a factory in Kakegawa, in southern Japan, which it says will serve as a prototype, enabling the company to discover if this is the way forward for sourcing plant-based raw materials.
The growing trends in natural and organic cosmetics means that the supply of ingredients used to put in such products has been put under intense pressure, often leading to scarcities of the most popular ingredients that can leave formulation experts with the problem of finding replacement ingredients.
Likewise, the close scrutiny of natural and organic products, invariably linked to the tough certification practices associated with the category, means that safety and traceability is also paramount.
Assured supply of plant-based ingredients
The company says that these two particular issues have been the driving force behind the initiation of the project, which aims to provide assured sourcing of specific ingredients, combined with in-house controlled safety and traceability.
The company has created what it terms a 'container-type facility' that enables the cultivation of plants that can be farmed for raw materials that can eventually be extracted for their active ingredients.
The facility also includes a test farm that will be set up for full-scale operation from this month and will ultimately lead to the development of a reliable plant raw material, that the company can trace without problem to source.
Farmed ingredient to be used in Shiseido products by 2014
The Shiseido team says that it aims to include active ingredients extracted from the plant raw materials by the start of 2014, and intends to gradually expand the project with the co-operation of raw material manufacturers.
The company says that, in addition to the obvious advantages of easier sourcing and traceability, the creation of the facility can also help enhance the company’s competitive edge, produce ingredients with enhanced functionality and efficacy, as well as reducing the carbon footprint of the manufacturing process.
In particular, the project aims to make the manufacturing process greener by also using natural energy as a heat source for certain aspects of the farm, as part of a holistic approach to making the entire project as eco-friendly as possible.