Altret began its journey way back in 1948, when Hind Hardware & Paint Stores, a complete paint shop was established in Surat. This was the time, when people were hardly aware of chemical properties. Shampoos were not popular, as customers were satisfied with soap bars. And, cleaning was nowhere a part of a company’s budget.
After the success of Hind Hardware and KAS Distributors, the Lokhandwala family established ‘Raj Industries’ in 1995, before beginning Altret Chemicals Pvt Ltd in 1999 to engage in the business of Water Treatment Chemicals & Combustion Monitoring Chemicals. With a complete expertise in the chemistry of chemical functioning and business viability, cleaning chemicals’ manufacturing and business was started in 2004 with state-of-the-art facility and a highly equipped laboratory for R&D in Bhuj.
Business & Operations
The company’s operations address sensitive, quality and environmental issues and actively support the industry-wide initiative. Altret does cater to a range of chemical demands – boiling/cooling water treatment chemicals, solid/liquid fuel additives, cleaning chemicals and corrosion inhibitors by hiring experts for every required subject domain: water chemistry, combustion chemistry, surfactant science and so on. This brings the diagnostic skill in solving technical problems. The well-equipped laboratories and a team of highly experienced analysts, enables handling complex technical problems related to the development of innovative products.
Sponsored by us, Clean India Journal can provide a better platform for Industrial training – a training that could equally focus on creating awareness and usage of chemicals.
– AB Lokhandwala
“Every year, the business is growing by 20%. Besides its presence in retail, the company is catering to pharmaceuticals, State Utilities, thermal power plants and other industries. As the products are being sold everywhere, so far, we have no intention to establish regional offices but the business is done via our channel partners. We are more in ARD (Application based Research and Development).
Indian Scenario
Indian cleaning chemical market is about `2,000 crore; 80% of which is taken by industrial cleaning chemical and 20% by corporate cleaning.
In the US, the UK, China, Singapore, New Zealand and other countries, the cleaning market has already grown. The essentiality of maintaining the strict cleaning norms there has increased the manufacturing cost as well. With ‘chalta hai chalne do’ becoming out-dated, Indian cleaning market is catching fast but still in its nascent edge, providing a fertile opportunity for investments.
Now-a-days, people have started using chemicals for different areas like toilet, kitchen etc making a way for better and faster solutions. Awareness level has increased in the rural areas as well.
Multipurpose chemicals are becoming more popular. However in parts of urban areas people prefer to use specific chemicals for specific purposes. While in rural areas, the habit is rarely seen. Therefore, Altret purposely mixes a number of formulations to broaden the usability and cleanability.
Creating awareness is something that takes time. The company organises industrial training programmes intermittently to make people/staff aware of: ‘Right chemical and right way’ – to achieve the desired hygiene level.
The company is in a process to start a JV with a New Zealand based chemical company CPC NZ. The JV would bring to the table both financial and strategic partnership. This will help in trade and research development across the globe while improve the CPC NZ’s economic viability of manufacturing chemicals.” With more than five decades of experience, AB Lokhandwala has the expertise to identify the right cleaning formulation as per the application requirement of various industries. Armed with several degrees, he is still learning and is now pursuing M.Sc. and plans to write chemical thesis to complete his PhD.