Eco-Friendly Deodorant Brand Wild Is Targeting The Mass Market

LONDON, United Kingdom — Wild, an eco-friendly deodorant brand shaking up the personal care category has secured partnerships with some of the UK’s leading supermarkets, retailers and department stores in a bid to crack the mainstream market.

The two-year-old startup, which sells a range of refillable deodorants — the first of their kind to be 100% compostable and biodegradable — can now be found in 285 Sainsbury’s stores across the UK, as part of the supermarket’s ‘future brands’ initiative which supports emerging brands that specialise in sustainability.

In addition, it is also trialling its products in 30 Waitrose stores, Selfridges department stores and 19 Boots stores throughout the UK with a further store roll-out planned for the new year. The hope is, by existing in established high street shops such as these, the brand can better reach a growing audience across the UK and the Republic of Ireland without individuals having to change where they already shop.

“The last six months have been a whirlwind and it’s been incredible to see Wild available on the shelves of more and more retailers,” shared Wild Founder, Freddy Ward.

“It’s our ambition to make it as easy as possible for customers to switch to natural and sustainable products and allowing customers to pick up Wild with their weekly shop helps us achieve this,” he added.

With values around both the ‘wellnessification’ of personal care and conscious consumerism — two trends that Wild sits at the intersection of — growing in consumer importance, it’s unsurprising the brand’s retail expansion has been moving quickly.

It’s been generating noise within an unloved and anachronous category since its launch, attracting the attention of consumers who want the personal care brands they’re using on a daily basis to align with their values and deliver relevant, meaningful products and experiences — a trend we explore in our 2022 Consumer Wellness Trends Report. And now retailers are also starting to take note.

The 100% biodegradable deodorant bar, housed in a sleek refillable case, provides consumers with a tangible and easy way to reduce personal care waste, is free from the parabens and harsh chemicals that many of its predecessors still fail to omit and it delivers a more visually appealing identity via its candy coloured packaging and cool approach.

This winning formula has enabled the brand to sell over three quarters of a million products since its launch, attract over half a million customers and bag TALA Founder and fitness influencer Grace Beverly as one of its investors. With new retail partners now in its grip, that growth trajectory looks set to continue.

However, not content with just racking up sales, Wild aims to elevate the personal care experience and challenge industry norms to contribute to a healthier planet.

To facilitate such a shift, “right from the very beginning, every business decision we have made has had the customer at the centre of it,” Jocelyn Charman, Head of Operations at Wild told Welltodo.

Despite its fast growth, Wild says it’s still at the beginning of its journey. The brand plans to secure more retail partnerships in the coming months to make it easier for consumers to shop more responsibly with ease, as well as launch a wider range of products.

“We want to make sustainable and natural products mainstream and hope to get Wild into as many bathrooms as possible,” Charman commented.

“We’ll keep listening to customers and making the deodorant as good as it can be. Once we’ve perfected that perhaps there’s another bathroom product that we can bring onto the Wild side.”