Something’s Ecooking in travel retail

The skincare market is crowded, so it takes something pretty special for a new player to carve a niche in the segment.

At the same time, consumer behaviour and mindset is shifting rapidly with more regard for the environment and a desire for clean and healthy products.

Enter Ecooking – a skincare brand that has grown from small batch preparation in a kitchen to become a rapidly-emerging name in beauty.

Ecooking was developed by Danish entrepreneur Tina Søgaard, a beauty industry veteran of 20 years. Each product in the Ecooking range is created on the basis of specific requirements and is formulated to target a specific problem, she says. The brand is built on fundamentals principles of being “natural, organic, vegan and environmentally-friendly”.

The brand’s contemporary take on skincare and compelling origin story will now be told in travel retail, as Gebr Heinemann has listed Ecooking in five stores under its new ‘Clean Beauty’ concept. Clean Beauty was initially targeted at Scandinavian countries but has also been launched in Germany at Frankfurt and Hamburg airports.

Heinemann sees the brand as relevant in today’s market where the demand for responsible, sustainable and clean brands is ever stronger. “We cater to this general shift in consumer behaviour and the passion for clean beauty among travellers and take the responsibility to list sustainable brands very seriously,” says Gebr Heinemann Director Purchasing Department Perfume and Cosmetics Britta Hoffmann.

“We were thus looking for organic and vegan and cruelty-free brands and found that Ecooking is perfectly meeting the demands of our health-conscious customers who are yearning for environmentally-friendly products. The trendy and biologically degradable packaging of Ecooking is also appealing to that target group and was thus a big plus for our decision to list the brand.”

“At the same time, customer requirements are more complex – from price-sensitive customers and those intent on luxury products to consumers seeking sustainable, certified organic ingredients. We aim to bring all these additional values to the perfume and cosmetics category at Heinemann.”

Brand founder Søgaard thinks the travel retail channel will offer great opportunities for exposure. “The world has become a village and people travel more and more, especially in small countries like Denmark,” she explains. “Visiting a duty free shop in an airport or a ferry is often a good way for me to discover new brands and new trends. For Ecooking, this is a great opportunity to get more visibility.”

Ecooking is represented in duty free and travel retail by Brand-Mover. The agency was founded by Karina Lassen, who was previously at Conaxess Trade.

Lassen sees Ecooking as a “perfect fit” for travel retail. “The products are rich in organic and natural ingredients and without any parabens at affordable price points,” she says. “So even though the skincare market is crowded, there is a huge potential for a new brand like Ecooking with its great story, its environmentally-friendly products and packaging and its attractive prices.”