Aqueous Cleaning Market

Question:

I am trying to find out the size of the aqueous cleaning market for a presentation. Do you know an approximate figure? By the way, your "Practical Guide to Industrial Metal Cleaning" has been a great training tool. B.B.

Answer:

Thanks for the feedback, it is always appreciated. I tried to do some digging to come up with an answer to your question and was not able to find much. I forwarded your question to a company that should know more than I do about market size. Jeff Beard is North American Sales Manager for Petroferm. They are in the chemicals formulating/sales end of the business as well as contract cleaning. His response to your question is as follows (I guess I don't feel that bad that I couldn't answer it):

 

Dave,
In regards to your question, "How big is the aqueous cleaning market?" Here's where we are…
We have thought about it, wondered about it, talked about it, pontificated about it and all theories lead back to the same answer. There is no published answer and as near as we can tell, there is no way to come up with a good answer quickly. I am not sure speculation could even get us close. Here is why this is so hard to pin down.

This market is extremely fragmented. There are large companies selling aqueous products for a variety of uses and markets. There is an aqueous fluid for virtually every application imaginable, from floors to lens. For every one "large" company there are what… 20, 50, 100 "smaller mom and pop"-type companies making very good, effective aqueous cleaners for customers in their specific city, state, region. Virtually all of these companies are private, so there is no sharing of sales information or volumes produced/sold.

I decided to open up the Indianapolis Yellow Pages. Inside I found 30 chemical suppliers. Now multiply that by every city in the United States and you quickly see the problem to developing an educated answer to your question. –Jeff