COMPANYINFO
COMPANY Vanguard Soap
FOUNDERS Charles and Evelyn Breazeale
CEO Jeff Breazeale
EMPLOYEES 150
HEADQUARTERS Memphis, Tennessee
WEBSITE vanguardsoap.com
ITEMS AT COSTCO
Kirkland Signature Body Soap (Item #394697)
QUOTE ABOUT COSTCO
“Our team has been proud to work with
Costco since 2005. We were impressed
from the start with the integrity behind
Costco’s Kirkland Signature strategy: Bring
the highest-quality bar soap to members at
the greatest value. We are thankful to all
the Costco members who have helped us
grow the Kirkland Signature Body Soap program over the years.”—Jeff Breazeale, CEO
BY STEVE FISHER
COSTCO MEMBERS know that Kirkland
Signature™ products compete with the top
products on the market. That’s because
Costco buyers work very hard to ;nd the
best manufacturers and then partner with
them to produce the best formulation and
value. A perfect example is Kirkland
Signature Body Soap, which is manufactured by Vanguard Soap, a decades-old
family company.
The Connection recently spoke to Je;
Breazeale, the third-generation chairman
and CEO of the company, to learn more.
THE COSTCO CONNECTION: What is
Vanguard Soap?
JEFF BREAZEALE: Vanguard is our original family business in Memphis,
[Tennessee]. It was [originally] called Valley
Products Company. It was formed by my
grandparents in the ’;;s. We are the third
generation.
CC: Where are your products made?
JB: All the products are made in
Memphis. We’ve been at our site since the
’;;s. My grandfather went to what is now the
University of Memphis, and his ;rst job was
working in the chemistry lab at a soap com-
pany, and that’s how our family got into soap
making. He was promoted to run the plant
and eventually, when the owner of the com-
pany passed, he arranged to buy the assets
of the soap company from the widow, and
that’s how Valley Products started, in ;;;;.
CC: How did the company evolve over
the years?
JB: When we started in the ’;;s, detergents hadn’t really come along, and so our
;rst products were laundry soaps. It wasn’t
until ;;;; that we started making bar soap.
That was during the Korean War, and there
was a great need for soap in the military, and
our ;rst product was GI yellow bar soap. My
dad made that when he was a teenager in
the plant. These were ;-pound bricks of soap.
My father joined in ;;;; and expanded
our business into other vegetable-oil-based
products. In the ’;;s, he decided to start
focusing on bar soaps. I got involved in the
’;;s, and we’ve focused a lot on natural and
organic soaps.
CC: How did the relationship with
Costco begin?
JB: Our relationship began in ;;;;. It
was actually through a company that is no
longer in business, but they were a customer
of ours. They introduced us to Costco. And
we worked with that company in developing
the Costco relationship. Then, in ;;;;, we
started working directly with Costco on the
program because that [other] business
[was] sold. Since that time we’ve made many
improvements in the program. It’s a continuing process.
For instance, installing more e;cient
equipment has allowed us to o;er the high-
est value. We have certi;cations that are
becoming important in the natural and
organic world, such as no animal testing,
non-GMO [genetically modified organ-
isms], made in the USA.
Costco looks at the market to see what
the highest-quality product is, in that category. And then they want to be better than
that and o;er value to the member. It’s a
great model. Kirkland Signature bar soap
is a natural soap, which is actually the highest end of the bar-soap market.
CC: How is the Kirkland Signature Body
Soap produced?
JB: We start with vegetable oil, mostly
palm or coconut oil. If we want to make a
solid soap, we saponify it [turn it into soap]
with sodium. That produces a solid soap.
Interestingly, for the KS soap, we’re
doing something unique. It’s the only bar on
the market like this that I’m aware of. We’re
[using] potassium and sodium to make a bar
soap. Usually bar soaps are all sodium soaps.
By doing that we’re increasing the mildness
and moisturizing of the bar. It’s a two-step
process uncommon in bar soaps. C
Busı˙nesse
cleanı˙ng IS up Vanguard Soap stays in the family
Clockwise from top left:
Ray Owen, a company chemist, in the early 1950s; kettle
installation in 1946; CEO Jeff
Breazeale in bar-soap production; and a bar of Kirkland
Signature Body Soap.
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OUR DIGITAL EDITIONS
Click here to watch soap being produced
at Vanguard. (See page 10 for details.)
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