Cosmetics New Zealand – an exporting beauty
Industry
Cosmetics
Products
- Advocacy
- Manufacturing and industry group experts
- AI bootcamp
Location
“We have an international association network that collaborates on regulation, best practice and sharing of information.”
Wyllie attends international standards meetings and is the key contact between Cosmetics NZ and our Environmental Protection Authority.
Overview
The cosmetics industry is one of New Zealand’s export success stories, but one not widely told.
The industry’s association, Cosmetics New Zealand, has companies supplying thousands of stores in Europe, Asia and the US, generating around $600m in export revenue for the country.
It even has a company, Lanocorp, whose By Nature products are stocked by retail behemoth Walmart in the US. Lanocorp is owned by EMA Member Trilogy, while Lanocorp is based in Christchurch and is a member of our sister organisation, the Canterbury Chamber.
Cosmetics NZ domestic exporters, which are also EMA Members, include Nutrimetics, New Image and Living Nature. Over the years, the mix of companies in Cosmetics NZ has changed considerably, to the point that multinationals make up only 5% of the total membership, whereas New Zealand companies make up the balance.
There are currently 26 producers in New Zealand manufacturing for more than 110 member companies or brands, which focus mainly on export.
Cosmetics NZ also has import brands like L’Oreal, Johnson & Johnson, Shiseido and Revlon. Although, numerically, those brands are only a small part of the total membership, they are a large part of domestic sales.
The Need
As a rapidly expanding and increasingly profitable association, Cosmetics NZ needed an experienced Executive Director to handle the association’s regulatory needs and to act as a media spokesperson and government liaison for lobbying and advocacy activities.
For this, Cosmetics NZ turned to the EMA’s team of manufacturing and industry group experts for its proven record of compliance, regulatory and advocacy expertise.
The EMA’s Executive Director of Manufacturing and Industry Groups, Garth Wyllie, began as an Executive Director for Cosmetics NZ in 2001, when the association moved from Wellington to Auckland. At that time, it comprised 31 members and was dominated by the large multinational cosmetics companies.
However, in recent years, the association has grown in size to about 160 members. Wylie’s rapidly expanding role was split in two and he took on the role of Technical Executive Director.
The Solution
Wylie’s role has allowed him to focus on international standards, regulation and providing to its manufacturers an audit to Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP).
This system ensures manufacturing products, such as food, cosmetics, and pharmaceutical goods, are consistently produced and controlled according to set quality standards. Cosmetics NZ issues GMP certification for its members.
Those certificates are accepted for Europe, most of Asia and now will be a requirement in the United States under its Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act of 2022 (MoCRA).
Wyllie attends international standards meetings and is the key contact between Cosmetics NZ and our Environmental Protection Authority, for anything to do with cosmetic ingredient regulation in this country.
He also sits on the Australian and New Zealand Sunscreen Standard AS/NZS, which details the test procedures and criteria for determining the SPF, broad spectrum performance and water resistance of sunscreens. It’s mandatory for New Zealand and Australia when you sell sunscreens in either market.
“While in recent years most of those meetings have been by Zoom, previously it would be a 6am flight to Sydney and return same day after the meeting finished on the last flight back,” says Wyllie.
“It makes for a long day!
“We have an international association network that collaborates on regulation, best practice and the sharing of information. This allows me to access the member sections of those associations, to search out information related to ingredients at no cost to Cosmetics NZ.
“This collaboration assists when our member companies have an issue within one of their markets where we can often assist in providing local market help through our sister organisations.”
With the help of EMA Project Co-ordinator Yi New Lim, Wyllie runs technical and regulatory workshops/webinars three times a year for Cosmetics NZ, to keep everyone up to date on legislation, standards and issues related to the cosmetics industry both here and around the world.
“The multinational companies here often have their technical experts based in Australia, so it is not uncommon for five or six of those attending to be offshore and we get good feedback on these workshops.”
The association has just finished an ‘AI bootcamp’ for its members, to make sure they are aware of the industry-specific tools they can utilise in their businesses.
