For the company as a whole, Net sales in the fourth quarter of 2025 increased 5% year-over-year. This increase reflects higher selling prices, that were mainly attributable to the pass-through of higher raw material costs and more favorable product mix, and the favorable impact of foreign currency translation. A 3% decline in sales volume partially offset the above.

Here’s a little more color on the surfactants results:

Surfactant net sales were $401.8 million for Q4, a 6% increase versus the prior year. Selling prices were up 10% primarily due mainly to a pass through of higher raw material costs. Sales volume declined 7% year-over-year primarily due to lower demand within the commodity Laundry & Cleaning end markets, lower demand from distributors partners and lower volume in the Philippines due to the asset divestiture. Excluding the impact of the Philippines, volume declined 3%.

The Enact Fund, under the management of the private equity firm Endless, has recently acquired GEO Specialty Chemicals UK Ltd. ("GEO"), a manufacturer of specialty chemicals based in Southampton.  GEO operates on a 53-acre site and features two distinct business units that possess global-scale capabilities and advanced expertise in alkoxylation, methacrylate chemistry, and specialty silicones. The company caters to premium markets, such as coatings, lubricants, and medical devices, achieving annual revenues of approximately £68 million. [I’m just wondering where they get the EO (or maybe it’s all PO) as the last I knew, no-one was making it in the UK] Get thee to the tipline, please!

Huge news from the world of process tecnnolgy. Ballestra has agreed to be acquired by NextChem (Maire) an Italian engineering company with many complementary capabilities. Here is most of the press release:

Founded in 1960 and headquartered in Milan, Ballestra S.p.A. is the holding of a group of companies comprising BUSS ChemTech AG (Switzerland) and Ballestra Engineering and Projects Pvt. Ltd (India). Ballestra Group operates in over 120 countries with approximately 450 employees and offices in Europe and Asia, serving a well-established base of blue-chip clients supported by a proven track record of over 6,400 plants installed worldwide. It relies on a strong intellectual property and R&D expertise, continuously sustained by proprietary pilot plants in Italy and Switzerland, which serve as innovation hubs for testing and scaling new technological processes.

The CESIO committee produced, in November, updated recommendations for the classification and labeling of surfactants. It is a huge, densely packed document which they’ve helpfully also made available in a spreadsheet format downloadable from this page.  The guide recommends labelling and UN GHS classifications, including those all-important pictograms, for what looks like over 800 commercial surfactants. Wow!  I took a look and here are some interesting snippets. I’ll focus just on pictograms for brevity..

In October 28^th, WSJ, an article caught my attention entitled “The Lengths Americans Are Willing to Go to Make Every Penny Count” with a sub-head “From buying half a cow to watering down soap, people are experimenting with frugality—and it is affecting sales at consumer companies”  Here it is but it’s beind a paywall. So, I’ll summarise (un-AI-aided, I might add). It’s a canary in the coalmine type article about what consumers are doing in response to rising prices and concerns about their financial status. Some are shopping at less expensive shop, so Aldi vs Wegmans (good move in my opinion). More telling though, P&G reported volume declined 2% in the latest quarter in its home and fabric-care division, which includes Tide, Dawn and Swiffer. Meantime, private-label brands that make cheaper generics haven’t seen a corresponding increase, the company said last week, suggesting consumers are using up their inventory and making their existing stock last longer, rather than trading down. At least so far. Here’s the bit that got me; Julie Simpson (a consumer) is diluting, with water, her Dawn dish detergent and Clorox floor cleaner. Some of this has first-world problem vibes about it though. One consumer has apparently had to pause her dog Zane’s monthly toy subscription. Oh no!  

For my money, Integrity Biochem, along with maybe Evonik, is the commercial leader in the new bio-based surfactant field. How so? They are a solid revenue and earnings generating, well established company, not a startup, built on new technology (Not fermentation BTW). The company has been around since 2017 and they are growing at a blistering pace. Now, full disclosure, I am an advisor to their board and so you have to apply a Blog Shameless Bias (BSB) factor, but even then, they are worth a real good look. The company recently a launched a new venture in Australia. with ICD BioChem, a newly formed company in the ICD Group of companies. Through this partnership, ICD BioChem will bring Integrity BioChem’s mining technology platform to the rapidly growing Australian mining market and build local manufacturing capacity to meet strong demand for sustainable industrial chemistries. ICD BioChem, with operational and technical support from Integrity BioChem, is currently developing a state-of-the-art bio-based chemical manufacturing facility in Perth. The facility will produce the company’s patented, market-first bio-based surfactant platform in addition to other bio-based chemistry at commercial scale to supply Australia’s mining, industrial, HI&I, and personal care sectors with high-performance, lower-environmental impact alternatives.