Company Overview

Looking out over a San Francisco Bay salt marsh in 1913, five Oakland, California, entrepreneurs held their noses and saw dollar signs. The business they founded that year to convert brine into liquid bleach is today worth more than $4 billion in annual sales. The Clorox Company has expanded beyond household bleach to build a tidy little empire marketing things that usually reside below the kitchen sink. Some of Clorox’s brands include Soft Scrub, Tilex, Formula 409, and SOS cleaning products, Brita water filtration systems, Kingsford charcoal briquettes, Combat insecticide, Fresh Step and Scoop Away cat litter, and Armor All and STP auto products. Clorox also produces food products such as Hidden Valley dressings, and food packaging materials like Glad Wrap. In spring 2005, Clorox introduced BathWand, a new brand of bathroom cleaner, and iRobot, the world’s first floor-washing robot. The new products are part of the company’s campaign to introduce what it calls “gamechangers,” innovative products that make household chores more convenient. In 2006, the company licensed a Canadian company to make and market antifreeze, coolants, and related products, and it recently brought Scooba, a robotic wet mop that vacuums, scrubs, and dries floors, to market.