Ingredients Plus, founded in 2007 by a group of entrepreneurs from the beauty and health care industries, brings over 25 years of experience in distribution of specialty ingredients.
Headquartered in Sydney, the group has a presence in most parts of Asia Pacific and is still expanding geographically.
The partnership is an effort to combine DSM's knowledge and customer-oriented approach with the Group's technical and innovative solutions.
"This partnership will enable us to fulfil our ultimate objective of becoming a one-stop ingredients and solutions provider in our local market. We are very excited about this opportunity and look forward to share with our customers DSM’s state-of-the-art technologies," says ST Chai, managing director, Ingredients Plus Malaysia.
Exploring the needs of Asia's markets
DSM has been exploring the Chinese market of late to deconstruct some cultural codes that influence the personal care sector to ultimately tailor existing solutions and create new ones that answer the needs of the country's women.
According to DSM, China is known for its complexity and difficulties for brands to enter or gain traction, and the key is to better understand consumer needs, trends and frustrations.
“In all the markets I have visited for research, this really is a very exciting one, where you can feel an undercurrent of change happening. Chinese women talked very differently to Western consumers about beauty and decoding whitening and anti-ageing was complex and challenging," global consumer and market insights manager, David Paxton said in 2014.
In China, Paxton and his team observed that there is far more emphasis placed on the inner than they see in many Western countries, with many women wishing to prove they are beautiful before showing that they are.
But looks are important too! They saw that women place a lot of emphasis on the importance, and their responsibility, to maintain and do “the best with what I have so that I have the best chance in life”.
According to the company, the information has already led to a variety of launches for 2015, specifically around whitening, anti-ageing and pollution.