Axe falls on detergent brands

Soap giant rivals Lever Brothers and Procter & Gamble are understood to be axing more detergent sub-brands and variants in an effort to streamline the market.

Lever Brothers will drop standard liquid detergents for brands including Persil, Radion and Surf. The liquid variants will be removed from supermarket shelves by spring 1997. The move will allow Lever Brothers to focus on the concentrated variants.

Industry sources also say P&G will drop liquid standard variants of Ariel by the end of the third quarter next year. Dick Johnson, P&G’s director of corporate affairs, denies the standard liquid brands are going to be axed but did not rule out this possibility in the future.

P&G has confirmed it is ditching Ariel Ultra (MW August 2). This will leave the Regular Ariel big box powder and super compact Ariel Futur products.