By David Calvert, December 2024
I recently made a flying one-day visit to the Annual Biocontrol Industry Meeting (ABIM) which took place in Basel between 21st and 23rd October. The event is a great mix of conference, exhibition and facilitated meetings and this year welcomed 2040 participants from 67 countries.
The exhibition space was expanded to two floors this year and seemed to give more space for those important introductions and re-unions. It was great to meet up with many old colleagues and to make some new connections. The growth of the event shows how important the biocontrol market has become and formulation continues to play a role with a number of ingredient suppliers exhibiting for the first time.
“Natural” solutions continue to be welcomed by consumers, and this has become a regular feature at SCS Formulate, an annual exhibition organised by the Society of Cosmetic Scientists that took place this year in Coventry between 12th and 13th November. For the past few years, they have organised the Laura Marshall Memorial Award in two categories, one for Innovation in Sustainability and Ethics and the other for Innovation in Technology and Disruption. The three shortlisted in each category were all impressive. Beauty UnMASKED won the Sustainability and Ethics award for an over 99% natural, biodegradable, microplastic-free, dissolvable sheet mask formulation, composed of a cellulose gum film, that doesn’t dry out over time. The film has been developed to be active-infused and water-activated, thus not requiring a co-packaged essence. The mask dissolves in contact with water after use. The Technology and Disruption winner was Boost My Cycle, a 4-in-1 product that has been specifically designed around knowledge of the impact hormones can have on the skin. You can find more details of the winners and the other shortlisted products here.
Often at exhibitions there are very interesting talks given by suppliers but these are frequently difficult to follow due to background noise from the exhibition itself. At SCS Formulate I was impressed by the use of the “Silent Disco” headphones which was a new innovation to me and was certainly a significant improvement for all concerned.
