Brands Briefing: How plastic-free cleaning brands like Blueland and Clean Cult are breaking into mass retail

“Our ongoing assumption is that most people who will encounter us in store don’t use us and have never heard of us,” said co-founder Sarah Paiji-Yoo. “And in a retail environment, if that person is not going to purchase us or pick us up, we’re still trying to build that brand awareness.”

Plastic-free cleaning brands like Blueland are arriving en masse to retailers like Target, Meijer, Costco and more this year, driven by consumer demand for products with cleaner ingredients and less plastic waste. But, as they land on shelves, they are having to make tweaks like changing product packaging, adjusting pricing and creating store-specific exclusives. Many digitally-native startups face similar conundrums when they land on the shelves of mass retailers for the first time, given the disparities between a shopper’s online journey and one they take through stores. Smoothie brand Kencko, for example, redid its packaging after launching in Walmart in 2023 to more clearly communicate to customers what the product was.

In late April, a Target spokesperson told Modern Retail that Blueland is one of several new eco-friendly cleaning brands arriving on its shelves this year along with Dropps, Aunt Fannie’s, Branch Basics and Morton Pro. “We know consumers are looking for even more options when it comes to cleaning products that are effective but also free from harmful chemicals, and we’re continuing to bring more items to the cleaning aisle with additional new arrivals,” the spokesperson said.

A Kantar sustainability survey of more than 100,000 people last year found that 24% of shoppers are “eco-actives,” or highly concerned about the environment and plastic waste. That’s up from 20% in 2023. Carmen Bohoyo, evp of sustainable transformation at Kantar, said top concerns around cleaning products for “eco-actives” include air pollution, water pollution and broader climate issues. Others brought up more health-related concerns like microplastics in water.

“They’re thinking about the category in a more blended, holistic way,” she said. 

Kantar’s Sustainability Sentiment Index shows climate change is the top concern for U.S. shoppers. But when they’re at the point of purchase, they’re also ranking factors like brand, price and format more deliberately, she said. 

For brands, that means tinkering with sustainability messages and ensuring the price point is competitive. But brands that are transparent about their ingredients and processes — without embellishing or greenwashing — have the most to gain, she said. 

“Yes, they’re doing it for the world, but they also see the commercial upside,” she said. “It impacts market share, growth and profitability. It’s not just idealism — it’s sales strategy.”

At Blueland, which has been profitable for the last three years and sees consistent quarter-over-quarter revenue growth, getting into Target has been “six years in the making,” Paiji-Yoo said. Blueland already had its powder-to-gel body wash on Target shelves for about 18 months. Shoppers, Paiji-Yoo said, didn’t quite take to a product that required them to add water and shake it to make it work.

This time, the new Target assortment is led by Blueland’s plastic-free dish and laundry tablets, which have overtaken its original surface cleaners as best sellers on its website. It’s also selling foaming hand soap tabs and toilet cleaning tablets, including an exclusive wild lavender scent. But it’s holding off on the just-add-water tabs for its surface cleaning products.

“Dishwasher and laundry are larger categories than sprays,” she said. “And with our dishwasher tablets and our laundry tablets, it’s a change of format, but there’s not a change in behavior. That’s been really helpful in lowering … the barriers to getting people to use that product.”

Blueland’s other wholesale launches since then have included Whole Foods, Meijer and Costco. Paiji-Yoo said these distributions have required the brand to launch a new strategy around pricing to stay competitive compared to its subscription-based DTC model. At Target, for instance, a 40-count of Blueland dish tablets runs about 35 cents a pod, comparable to 33 cents per pod from Seventh Generation. But Tide’s Free and Clean can run as low as 25 cents per pod in bulk containers. 

The timing of the launch coincides with many customers boycotting Target shopping because of the company’s rollback of DEI initiatives. Blueland, for its part, has responded to customers on social media explaining its decision was based on accessibility, as the launch means its products are now within 10 miles of 80% of the U.S. population. “With that, we are committed to work alongside our partners to encourage sustainable, inclusive and impactful decisions across all fronts, as best we can,” one response said. 

CleanCult, a DTC cleaning brand founded in 2019 that aims to tackle plastic waste, has also made a big distribution push this year. This month, it launched 17 SKUs in Target stores and online, and closed its $5 million Series B extension after hitting more than eight figures in revenue in 2024. It currently has about 70,000 points of distribution,, including Costco, Wegmans and Meijer.

CEO Ryan Lupberger told Modern Retail that the company didn’t consider the boycott in its decision to launch. “We just want to reduce plastic and stay true to our mission,” he said. 

Wholesale has been part of Clean Cult’s track for years. Shipping liquid products as a strictly DTC brand didn’t provide great margins, and the business effectively pivoted to wholesale in 2021. Lupberger said one key to getting on shelves has been starting with categories where customers may be more likely to try something new. Not all customers will risk their clothes with a laundry detergent they never tried, he said. 

“The way we look at this is to basically earn trust in a lower barrier category, like a hand soap or an all-purpose cleaner, and then transition them to the higher barrier categories [like laundry],” Lupberger said. 

Lupberger also said exclusives can help sweeten the deal for retail partners. In the case of Target, there are three new scents that are first to market, but they come in the same paper cartons or aluminum bottles as the brand’s other products. “It’s just really risky to introduce a new form upfront because it typically takes years of iteration to get that to click in most retail,” he said. 

Lupberger said his team is “addicted to focusing on the basics,” like straightforward value propositions on packaging and competitive pricing. Most companies can’t beat the price of leading conventional brands, he said, because their ingredients are typically more expensive. But the ability to meet or beat the price of leading natural brands can help grow share. 

“You kind of live and die on shelf,” Lupberger said. “And if you don’t have that right, it’s really hard to move the needle.” –Melissa Daniels

By the numbers: Footwear earnings 

It’s earnings season, and footwear brands’ results are starting to trickle in. Each week paints a better picture of how the industry is tackling some of its biggest issues, especially when it comes to tariffs. Here’s what some companies are seeing by the numbers, as reported in the last few days.

$937 million: Crocs’s consolidated revenue for the first quarter of 2025, “approximately flat” from the prior year. The company’s main brand, Crocs, generated the vast majority of this, at $762 million. While Crocs’s namesake brand is doing well, Hey Dude, which Crocs bought in 2021, is seeing sales slip. Crocs announced it was withdrawing its full-year guidance for 2025 “due to macroeconomic uncertainties stemming from global trade policies.” Crocs primarily manufactures in Vietnam, followed by Indonesia, China, India, Mexico and Cambodia.

Mid-single digits: The percentage of its inventory that Steve Madden hopes will come from China by the spring of 2026. Steve Madden, like many footwear brands, is moving fast to try to minimize its exposure to China. In 2024, Steve Madden said it sourced 71% of its U.S. imports from China. “For fall 2025, we expect the comparable figure, excluding Kurt Geiger, to be in the mid-teens and, by spring 2026, down to the mid-single digits,” CEO Edward Rosenfeld said on an earnings call on May 8.

47.3%: A record gross margin for Wolverine Worldwide, achieved in this last quarter. Wolverine’s sales for the first quarter totaled $412.3 million, largely thanks to Saucony and Merrell. CEO Chris Hufnagel said on a May 8 earnings call that Wolverine has posted record growth margins for four out of its five past quarters. He attributed this, in part, “to healthier brands and better inventory management, resulting in improved pricing power and a stronger full-price business.” Still, Wolverine withdrew its full-year guidance for 2025, citing uncertainty from tariffs. –Julia Waldow 

Checking in on Mack Weldon’s sale 

A few weeks ago, we wrote about a novel promotion that menswear brand Mack Weldon was hosting: The brand said that it would put a price lock on men’s underwear until July 4, giving customers a chance to stock up on underwear at its current price, while customers were being bombarded by emails from other companies stating they would raise prices because of tariffs. The company also dropped the price of one of its underwear SKUS, the 18-Hour Jersey Underwear, to $14.50 for a limited time, in a cheeky nod to the 145% tariff on China. 

It was a unique approach at the time – now, companies are seemingly upping the ante and trying to make more long-term pledges. Footwear brand Keen, for example, said last week that it wouldn’t implement any tariff-related price hikes on its hiking boots and shoes for all of 2025. 

So, did the call to “recession-proof your underwear drawer” actually convince shoppers to stock up? We checked back in with Mack Weldon, two weeks after the sale went live, and here are the stats they shared with Modern Retail: 

• Total units of undwear sales are up 50% since March. “The most significant spike came the week the tariffs were implemented, however we still are seeing our guy stocking up more than usual,” a spokesperson shared. 
• More than one-third of Mack Weldon’s customers participated in its “18-Hour Jersey Recession Proof Sale”; overall, the company had a 69% existing, 31% new customer split for the sale. So, overall, it primarily served as a way to engage existing customers. 
• Over 400 new customers participated in an underwear giveaway Mack Weldon hosted around New York City on April 24. –Anna Hensel

3 questions with Kimberly-Clark Chief Supply Chain Officer Tamera Fenske

Kimberly-Clark, owner of brands like Huggies, Kleenex and Scott, is beginning construction on two new U.S.-based manufacturing facilities this month: a brand-new advanced manufacturing facility in Warren, Ohio and an upgraded facility in Beech Island, South Carolina. The projects and other supply chain upgrades total over $2 billion in investments, plus upgrades to other facilities.  

Modern Retail spoke with Chief Supply Chain Officer Tamera Fenske about the decision to invest in American manufacturing at this time and the impact on operations moving forward.

Why did you choose Warren, Ohio as the site for your new operation?
“You look at our current footprint today and the products and categories we want to make and distribute, and being positioned there helps us really drive speed and efficiency as we continue to innovate new products for the consumer. And it’s just a great location based on both the manufacturing workforce and the distribution that we see in that quadrant.”

What areas of manufacturing are most ripe for automation in your processes and what will you be updating?
“We have proprietary technologies in our manufacturing lines. We have robotics and advanced automation as we move goods that will be installed, and then we have a tremendous amount of vision systems and advanced process control and different things that really help our workforce understand what’s happening and make sure we get a quality product right the first time.

We’re excited about this investment because it is in highly skilled jobs, and we are looking to automate and put a lot of automation into our sites. The past world of automation being scary is kind of behind us. Now it’s a great complement as you think about the changing demographic of the workforce and what the younger generation of the manufacturing workforce is looking for.”

How have recent global changes in supply chain and tariff policies shaped your long-term supply chain strategy?
“It makes us want to double down on the strategy we already had. We want to drive the right network to get to the consumer the best we can and the fastest. And then we want to drive automation and digital.

For me, it’s always been about having resiliency and agility. I know those are kind of buzzwords, but that is the truth — because even though today is one thing, tomorrow could be something else. And certainly, as Covid and many subsequent challenges along the way taught us, you have to have flexibility. You have to be able to pull different levers. You have to be anticipating and looking around the corner. The more you can build your supply chain to have that flexibility, the stronger you are in terms of weathering whatever’s going to come at you.” –Melissa Daniels

What we’re reading

• American Eagle is the latest brand to launch its own Substack. 
• In its earnings call last week, Warby Parker posted its first net quarterly profit. 
• SharkNinja’s CEO on how the company’s core consumer is feeling right now. 

What we’ve covered

• How supplement startup Grüns hit a $500 million valuation in two years and landed on the shelves of Sprouts, Target and Walmart. 
• Flower delivery startups like UrbanStems and Bloom Nation said Mother’s Day shoppers seemed to order slightly later this year as people were shopping around for the best deals. 
• Executives from Lalo, Loftie, Joe & Bella and more sound off on how much the temporary U.S.-China tariff truce will actually help them.