Hako UK: A Partnership Built on Shared Values & 20 Minutes of Distance

How Hako UK and soluCLEAN are making sustainable floor care the easiest choice for customers across the country.

 

A German-heritage floor cleaning equipment leader, with 77 UK staff and a global workforce of 2,500. A Wakefield-born sustainable chemistry brand with manufacturing on its doorstep. One shared conviction that doing things better, for business, for customers, and for the planet, shouldn’t require compromise.

When Hako UK Managing Director, Sylvie Giangolini, met soluCLEAN’s Helen McDonald at a sustainability workshop in Wakefield in the summer of 2024, neither of them had been aware of the other. What followed was a considered, values-led partnership that launched in July 2025 and is already reshaping how Hako delivers cleaning chemistry to its customers, with the strongest commercial results still to come.

The Opportunity to Do Things Better

Hako has always taken sustainability seriously. As a UK subsidiary of a global German manufacturer, the business supports customers through the full lifecycle of their floor cleaning equipment, from indoor and outdoor machines through to aftercare, consumables, and beyond. More than 55% of the plastics in Hako’s new machine tanks come from recycled materials. The company participates in EcoVadis and measures its scope 1–3 carbon footprint. Its UK operation is, by Sylvie’s own assessment, “ahead of several of European players when it comes to environmental responsibility.”

But consumables were a different story. Not because Hako wasn’t paying attention, but because, as Sylvie puts it, “it’s a relatively small part of the overall offering, and for a time it simply hadn’t commanded the same focus.” The detergents Hako supplied were imported from the Benelux region. They worked. But in the context of a UK market that’s increasingly tuned into sustainable solutions, and against the backdrop of rising import costs following Brexit and COVID-19, the picture was shifting.

Before Brexit, shipping a container of machines to the UK cost in the region of £1,200 to £1,300. By the time those pressures had fully fed through, the same container was costing around £3,500, a near-threefold increase that had a material impact on the cost of goods. Lead times from the Benelux suppliers stretched to two to three weeks, making it harder to respond to customer needs quickly. Some of the legacy detergent formulations raised enough suitability and environmental concerns that Hako chose not to stock them in the UK market at all. Bonded pallets and COSHH considerations added friction at every step.

The case for change was building. What was missing was the right partner to make it happen.

The Right Fit, Found Twenty Minutes Down the Road

The connection came through We Are Wakefield, a business community that brought Sylvie and Helen together at a sustainability workshop in 2024. “They were as passionate about the environment as us,” says Sylvie. “It was an opportunity to make a change, one that we could control internally.”

soluCLEAN manufactures its Solupak pre-measured daily cleaning pods in Wakefield, which happens to be, in Sylvie’s words, “twenty minutes down the road” from Hako’s operation. That proximity is more than a pleasing detail. It translates directly into faster replenishment, the ability to collect stock directly when needed, and the elimination of the bonded pallet and hazardous handling complexities that comes with the ready-to-use product supply chain. Where the legacy products required a two-to-three-week lead time, soluCLEAN’s Wakefield location means Hako can move quickly and with confidence.

The sustainability credentials were equally compelling. UK-based manufacturing means a meaningfully reduced carbon footprint compared with continental imports. The formulations are considered well-suited to the UK market. And for Hako’s customers, many of whom are themselves focused on managing their own carbon footprints, the ability to point to a British-made, sustainably produced cleaning solution carries real weight.

Discussions around distribution began in early 2025. By July 2025, Hako had launched soluCLEAN’s Scrubber Drier floor cleaning products as part of its offering. The partnership was live.

A Two-Pronged Approach to Changing Behaviour

Introducing a new product into an established business and customer base requires more than listing it on a website. Hako and soluCLEAN recognised early that conversion would need to work on two levels simultaneously, and the approach was built accordingly.

For the people actually using the product day to day, the case is intuitive. soluCLEAN’s pre-measured concentrate pods eliminate the guesswork and waste associated with traditional liquid concentrates: the uncontrolled “glug” of chemicals that leads to overuse, inconsistent results, and higher cost-in-use. Users who try the pods quickly understand that they’re using less, spending less, and getting a consistent clean every time. The simplicity sells itself.

But users are rarely the decision-makers, particularly in enterprise settings. Procurement managers, operations leads, and sustainability officers need a different kind of conversation, one built around cost analysis, sustainability evidence, and the kind of measurable proof that gets a change approved across a multi-site organisation. soluCLEAN provides that evidence. Hako’s sales and customer support teams deliver it.

The operational architecture Hako has built around soluCLEAN reflects this dual approach:

• The CRM has been updated to feature soluCLEAN accordingly.
• Every new pedestrian machine that leaves Hako’s operation includes a free soluCLEAN trial pack, putting the product in users’ hands from the moment they take delivery.
• Engineers are prompted during service visits to discuss detergents, demonstrate the pods, and leave samples.
• Customer support runs a structured three-monthly contact strategy to keep the conversation active.
• Trial packs have been supplied to every member of the sales team and engineering workforce.

The intent is clear: get users experiencing the product, and give decision-makers every reason to say yes.

Committed Internally, As Well As Externally

Perhaps the most telling sign of genuine commitment to a partnership is what a business is willing to do internally. On that measure, Hako has been unambiguous.

At Hako’s annual company conference in January, attended by the whole UK business, soluCLEAN was the only non-Hako department given a platform. UK product trainer, Mark Foster, presented the product’s benefits and ease of use to colleagues across every function. It was, by Sylvie’s account, a stand-out moment: “watching the room absorb the simplicity and logic of pre-measured pods, and seeing the shift away from the old “glug” mentality happen in real time. “We saw the penny drop for people,” she says. “That was a real highlight.”

soluCLEAN’s branding and samples have featured at Hako’s biannual engineer cluster meetings. In-office visual prompts have been installed to keep the product front of mind. Hako has launched an e-commerce platform with soluCLEAN products listed, with technical guidance on dosing quantities, pod sizing, and pack configuration provided by soluCLEAN’s Marcus ensuring accurate product representation and a smooth customer experience. The range is set to expand further as Hako looks to grow basket size and customer retention through consumables.

The enablement is thorough, and it is ongoing.

Early Results and What’s Coming Next

While it’s still early in the partnership’s commercial life, several enterprise customers are actively evaluating broader adoption, with change approvals working their way through internal processes. The structural timelines of large organisations, compounded in some cases by merger and acquisition activity among key accounts, mean that the biggest numbers are still on their way.

But the foundations are solid. The sampling activity has been extensive. The internal champions are in place. The e-commerce infrastructure is live. And following Hako’s engineer cluster meeting in July, both companies are expecting to see a material step up in commercial impact by Q3 2026.

The external validation has been encouraging too. A major forklift truck company has expressed strong interest in the soluCLEAN solution. That an enterprise customer of that scale has responded positively, even amid internal M&A complexity, is a signal of the proposition’s strength.

Sylvie is equally direct about what she has found in soluCLEAN as a partner. From the earliest conversations with Helen, through to working with Marcus on pod sizes, dosing quantities, and e-commerce listings, the experience has been straightforward. “The technical and commercial support has been super easy,” she says. “It’s been great from start to finish.”

A Partnership Built to Last

The story of Hako and soluCLEAN is, at its core, a story about alignment. Two businesses that operate in complementary spaces, share a genuine commitment to sustainability, and have found in each other a partner that makes the day-to-day easier rather than harder.

That alignment runs deeper than a supplier relationship. It shows in the way Hako has embedded soluCLEAN into its internal culture, from conference workshops to engineer cluster meetings to the trial pack tucked into every new machine delivery. It shows in the way soluCLEAN has supported Hako’s commercial teams with technical guidance, sampling infrastructure, and the kind of responsive, no-fuss service that a business twenty minutes down the road can genuinely deliver. And it shows in the shared understanding of what good looks like:

• A product that works better
• Costs less to ship
• Sits lighter on the environment
• Gives customers a reason to feel good about what they’re buying.

For Hako, the partnership has already delivered its original promise:  offering a replacing a simpler, more sustainable, and more responsive solution. For soluCLEAN, Hako represents exactly the kind of partner through which a better product reaches the customers who need it most: a trusted, established brand with deep customer relationships and a genuine appetite to do things the right way.

The commercial story is still building. Enterprise approvals take time, and both companies know the largest numbers are still ahead of them. But the infrastructure is in place, the internal champions are active, and the customers who have tried the product are coming back. That, as much as any headline figure, is the measure of a partnership that is working.

Some business relationships begin with a contract. This one began with a conversation between two people who cared about the same things, and that, perhaps more than anything else, is why it is going to go the distance.