There's a lot of history behind the Earthwise range of home, body and baby care products. The unlikely story starts in a Waikato orchard in the 1960s when the late Tom Robinson set up a fledgling business creating both natural and chemical-based fertilisers. By diversifying into farm and household cleaners, laundry and personal care products, he soon built up enough custom to focus entirely on natural ingredients, offering an alternative to the mass-produced chemical products flooding the market.
With his two young sons alongside him after school and on weekends: Tom hand-blended orders for customers who either couldn't or wouldn't use petrochemical-based products on their skin and clothing.
"I remember staying up all night trying to make up one-off blends, thinking: 'Why are we doing this? I could be out fishing!'" laughs Jeremy Robinson, supervisor at the Earthwise factory in St Johns, Auckland. "Dad would reply: 'it's what we do' and that would be that." Tom's philosophy was strongly-held: you don't let your customers down.
From the early days, the driving force behind the business was to provide natural, environmentally-sensitive products to anyone who wanted them. In order to do that, pricing had to be within reach of the average household shopper.
When Jamie Peters, ex Nice and Natural marketing manager, bought into the business in 2010, he took a small range of Earthwise products dressed in a fresh 'look and feel' to the supermarkets.
