The company moved into the vegan beauty space with the acquisition of P’URE Papayacare skincare in 2019.
Since then, it has extended the brand to 15 vegan-approved and certified products. The firm also launched a spin-off baby care range under the P’URE Papayacare label.
Additionally, G&M launched the Kakadu Plum Collection, another vegan range under its Australian Creams brand.
“We’ve known for the last two years or so that the demand for vegan products was coming from both consumers and our distributors,” said Peter Bosevski, global marketing and sales manager, G&M Cosmetics.
“In Japan, there are 15 million vegans, China has 50 million vegans. They don’t sound like big numbers, but we should not be missing that opportunity as the market shifts. It's jumped to the mainstream market, hence, we wanted to move with demand.”
With the vegan range, the company is targeting its millennial consumers. “The millennial consumers are educating themselves and exploring a whole different set of trends. Today, veganism is a holistic approach to life,” said Bosevski.
The firm believes this shift is coming from increasing consumer concern for product safety. For instance, Bosevski said its consumers no longer want ingredients like petroleum jelly in its products, which are perceived by them to be unsafe.
“At the same time, it’s not good enough to mention that the product is vegan. You need to have the extra step of approval and certification. We have to follow these steps to make sure we are at that level.”
Vegan baby products
This is an especially sensitive topic for baby care products, as such, the company believes there are huge opportunities in the vegan baby care category.
“People are changing their attitude toward baby care products. They are looking for high-quality vegan products. We are confident people will still continue to buy these products no matter what hits us.”
Bosevski highlighted that it was important for the company to create affordable products for the vegan baby care category.
“We’re seeing more baby products on the market. Many of them are really expensive. As a business, we have to put that hat on and think of the consumer that will buy the product. We saw a gap in the market to provide high-quality products with high-quality ingredients for a fraction of the price.”
The firm is able to keep the price of its products reasonable as the entire manufacturing process is done under one roof.
“From R&D to production to packaging, everything is done in-house, which helps us to reduce a lot of cost which we can pass onto the consumer.”
More vegan products to come
According to Bosevski, the COVID-19 pandemic managed to slow the firm down a little. In the new year, however, the firm is pushing ahead full steam ahead with more product launches and market expansion.
“When COVID-19 hit, we wanted to use this time wisely, so we expressed NPD roll-out. Last year we launched 20 new products in six months. And we will be pushing out more vegan products with a focus on the baby segment.”
Furthermore, he revealed that the company will be launching a new brand to the market as well.
Another focus for the company is its international expansion.
“As things are getting better in certain countries, we are already a step ahead with our new products. International expansion is a focus for us in 2021. We are looking at three main regions – SEA, Europe and North America.”
Currently, the firm’s vegan ranges are undergoing registration in the European Union. It expects to be able to roll out the products in the second half of the year.