Customer Success Story: How PVA Hygiene is transforming the cleaning industry
About PVA Hygiene
Founded over 25 years ago, PVA Hygiene set out to solve everyday problems in the commercial cleaning industry. Problems such as chemical overdosing, high transportation costs, limited storage space, and the widespread use of single-use plastics. Their solution: water-soluble sachets that are simple to use, easy to transport, and better for the environment. As sustainability became a growing priority across industries, PVA Hygiene’s value proposition only strengthened. Today, based in Wrington, Bristol, they are recognized as a leading manufacturer of innovative cleaning solutions, offering both PVOH and paper-based sachets to meet the evolving needs of customers.
SmartSolve is proud to partner with PVA Hygiene. Our Marketing team recently sat down with Charlie Wannerton (Director) and Ryan Day (Head of Operations) to hear more about the value of our collaboration. Here’s what they had to say.
Innovative Product Offering
From multi-purpose surface cleaners and foaming hand wash to powerful floor degreasers, PVA Hygiene offers a full suite of professional-grade cleaning solutions. Their best-seller? A thickened toilet cleaner—formulated as a green alternative to bleach.
This standout product is easy to dose, highly effective, and—critically—designed with sustainability in mind. Traditional toilet cleaners generate shocking levels of plastic waste annually. PVA Hygiene’s concentrated sachets provide a better path forward. Ryan stated,
Toilet cleaner has been our hero product—not just for performance, but for the packaging. The amount of plastic it saves annually is astonishing!
Their products are developed by in-house chemists in their on-site lab in Wrington, ensuring control over both quality and innovation.
The Switch to Water-Soluble Paper Sachets
Initially, PVA Hygiene imported PVOH-based sachets. About 15 years ago, they brought manufacturing in-house, focusing entirely on PVOH films. However, PVA has always been looking for ways to stay ahead of the competition through innovation. They explored seaweed-based packaging and other alternatives—but found the performance wasn’t there yet. Then came the turning point: discovering SmartSolve’s water-soluble paper technology.
SmartSolve’s soluble paper technology has provided new opportunities to add further value to the product by enabling sachet image and text printing, branding and the addition of classification symbols.
The result? A truly unique and superior product in an increasingly crowded market. Customers are drawn to the paper-based sachets, which dissolve quickly without requiring warm water.
Sustainability That Performs
The cleaning industry has long relied on bulky, plastic-heavy packaging. But PVA Hygiene has taken a different path—offering concentrated cleaning products in small, dissolvable sachets that eliminate single-use plastic and reduce emissions.
PVA Hygiene’s solutions provide:
- Significant reduction in transport costs and emissions.
- No need for large 5L containers.
- Elimination of single use plastics in product and packaging.
- Reduction storage space requirements.
- Accurate dosing for end user efficiency and cost saving.
They’ve won the Environmental Achievement award at the Somerset Business Awards, Manufacturer Of The Year award from the UK Green Business Awards 2023, and hold certifications including ISO 14001 (Environmental Management), ISO 9001 (Quality Management), and accreditations with the CHSA and Made in Britain. All of their products are also proudly registered with The Vegan Society.
Carbon Emissions Reduction
Charlie shared with us a powerful stat on carbon emmissions:
We see roughly between a 94% and a 98% reduction in carbon emissions when using sachet solutions compared to traditional concentrate or liquid ready-to-use products.
Today, PVA Hygiene offers both PVOH and paper options for nearly every product in their lineup—except one. Ryan, the Director of Operations then added:
Generally, we’re seeing customers shift to paper across all lines. For our trigger sprays, the transition was especially fast. And the performance is often better. Fingers crossed, the paper percentage will continue to go up over the next 12 months to eventually be an all water-soluble paper portfolio.
Additional Benefits
Since adopting SmartSolve’s paper technology, PVA Hygiene has seen improvements beyond just sustainability:
- Faster dispersion in cold water
- Increased safety in handling
- No warm water required for dilution
In fact, one of their largest facilities customers saw an annual reduction of four tons of carbon simply by no longer having to heat up water (since SmartSolve water-soluble paper sachets can dissolve in any water temperature).
Final Thoughts
As we ended our success story call with Ryan and Charlie, the final question was:
If you could summarize SmartSolve’s impact on PVA Hygiene in a few sentences, what would it be?
Ryan ended the call stating:
The obvious thing would be offering something new, something the market hasn’t seen before. I mean, the market can get quite saturated with products that are very similar. So being able to go in with something that nobody else has—provide functionality that the other alternatives on the market can’t offer—I mean, that’s irreplaceable, right?
Charlie added,
I agree with Ryan, but to summarize it… SmartSolve has really been our golden ticket to innovation. You’ve been that final piece we needed to truly differentiate ourselves. We’re in a very traditional market where people are resistant to change. So having the ability to say, ‘Actually, we’ve got an innovation here that not only catches people’s eyes but builds their confidence in our product range’—that’s priceless. It’s been great to have something like that in our corner.
At SmartSolve, we’re honored to partner with innovators like PVA Hygiene. Their story proves that sustainability and performance can go hand in hand—and that even a traditional industry can be reimagined through intentional innovation.
To Learn More
To learn more about SmartSolve’s product offerings and how you can use them for your specific application, request a sample or contact our team today.
Marketing Manager