with Gretchen Anthony, vp of operations.
Company: DeWolf Chemical
Owner: Hank DeWolf, president and CEO
Location: 400 Massasoit Ave., East Providence
Rhode Island's Market Has Changed. Developers, Builders, Investors and Sellers Must Change With It.
By Emilio DiSpirito IV License Partner | Engel & Völkers Oceanside Leader | The DiSpirito…
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Employees: 11
Type of business: Chemical distributor of performance-based specialty
chemicals in the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions
Annual sales: $10-12 million
Since 1942, family-owned DeWolf Chemical has been providing customers with not only the raw materials to make products like household cleaners, soaps, mascara and beauty lotions, but the technology to make them better.
One of the characteristics of the chemical distributor that sets it apart from the rest, according to DeWolf President and CEO Hank DeWolf, is its ability to work closely with customers and suppliers. The DeWolf Chemical sales team is technically trained in chemistry, he said, which gives them the knowledge to deal with manufacturers working on the latest chemical technology and with customers who want to develop better products.
“We go out and work with our customers to develop new formulas with raw materials,” DeWolf said. “Companies are always trying to make the next new and better (product)” and the distributor helps in that effort. “That’s what’s unique about our business; we’re the only distributor that sells from a technical standpoint.”
DeWolf Chemical has many mid-tier and small accounts and works with them to bring in new technology from manufacturers and first-hand in the laboratory to develop improvements in products like personal care and household industrial and institutional cleaners and goods. Its 20 manufacturers include BASF Corporation, Chemron Corp., Lonza, Akzo Nobel and Croda Inc. The distributor supplies chemicals to companies like Crabtree & Evelyn, John Freda, Cantol and Straight Arrow Products. The distributor also deals with a lot of companies that pick up non-named brands, called private label fillers.
DeWolf said half of those manufacturers are primary suppliers for DeWolf Chemical because they have the technology the distributor looks for to keep all three parties up to date with advances in chemicals and products.
“One of the ways to be one of the top 10 is to have new technology,” DeWolf said. “We work with cutting-edge companies.”
The company’s account executives spend about 80 percent of their time with customers’ research and development teams, whether educating them on a manufacturer’s latest technology or working with them on a project of their own that might be of interest to a manufacturer.
“We understand the markets our customers are involved in; we understand what our customers’ customers want,” DeWolf said. “We’re in a different league altogether and we hear it from our suppliers all the time.”
The chemical distributor provides its customers with materials like surfactants (chemicals that produce foaming in cleaning products), conditioning agents (for hair care), emollients (the moisturizing agent in creams and lotions), anti-static agents, silicones, preservatives and emulsifiers (which allow oil and water to be mixed). DeWolf Chemical has approximately 300 to 350 active accounts and 500 that it is currently “cultivating,” according to the president.
“We participate in long-term sales (technology, support and formulation) vs. opportunistic sales that offer no value other than price,” DeWolf said. “We are intimate with not only research and development and purchasing, but we’re also intimate with the owners and sales and marketing. If you understand what they’re looking for, then you know what to present to the suppliers.”
The historically New England-based distributor deals mostly with companies in Connecticut, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, but will be opening a mid-Atlantic division in New Jersey that will service customers from New York and New Jersey down to Richmond, Va. Until now, DeWolf Chemical’s Lincoln warehouse had been shipping to those areas as well as New England. Only 5 percent of the distributor’s customers are Rhode Island-based.
Founded by DeWolf’s grandfather, Henry DeWolf Sr., DeWolf Chemical has seen industries come and go in Rhode Island and has participated in many of them, DeWolf said. Hank DeWolf and his sister Gretchen Anthony, vice president of operations, bought the company from their father in 1998. During the 1940s, the distributor (then American Chemical & Solvent Company) supplied specialty chemicals to the textile industry. After textiles left and jewelry replaced it, the company supplied chemicals for jewelry manufacturing. During the high-tech boom of the late 1990s, it supplied chemicals to tech companies’ support industries. Through the changes in suppliers and customers, DeWolf Chemical has kept its focus on personal care and household chemicals.
“They have a lesser tendency to go through a recessional period than durable goods,” DeWolf said.
With 60 years of service under its belt, DeWolf Chemical has taken the time to cultivate professional relationships with some of the country’s largest chemical manufacturers and its customers. It is this service – along with the technology-based selling – DeWolf said, that sets his company apart.
“It’s the unparalleled level of customer service and support,” he said. “We
hear it all the time from our customers. Our focus is on the customer; it’s
externally driven. Once we gain a customer, we have a 95 percent retention rate.”
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