Soon, Goldie and Jerry were building a growing company. Goldie’s financial savvy and business acumen complemented Jerry’s problem-solving ingenuity. She ran “the inside” – managing the books, procuring raw materials, figuring out a pricing strategy, and more. Jerry was a natural innovator with unquenchable curiosity, a can-do attitude, a passion for their customers, and a way with people. In the earliest days, while Goldie managed the one-person office, Jerry mixed batches of product in their basement. While she developed their business model, he sold GOJO® Hand Cleaner, packaged in repurposed pickle jars collected from local restaurants, out of the trunk of their family car.
Through his conversations with customers, Jerry learned that workers were using too much of the much-loved heavy-duty hand cleaner, even scooping it out of its cans to carry home in their lunch pails to use at night, after working on their cars. This was making it too expensive for some business owners to buy and provide to their employees, and, if unaddressed, threatened to limit the growth of Goldie and Jerry’s business.
Never deterred and always the inventor, Jerry came up with the first-ever portion-control dispenser, for which he was granted a patent in 1952. This creative solution was a win-win, and served as the foundation for us to become the leader in heavy-duty hand cleaner across the country in the automotive after-market and industrial markets. Every soap dispenser on the wall today, anywhere in the world, is a descendant of that first dispenser Jerry invented!
Over the following decades, we expanded into broader skincare solutions for virtually every away-from-home market, from foodservice establishments to healthcare facilities, from cruise ships to schools. In 1988, we invented PURELL® Hand Sanitizer, creating a new way for employees, patrons, students, teachers, and everyone else to clean their hands away from the sink, reducing the spread of disease-causing germs.
The development of PURELL® Hand Sanitizer was a turning point, and, in 1997, we launched this breakthrough innovation into the consumer market, allowing people everywhere to have convenient access to hand hygiene. Today, PURELL® remains Canada’s #1 Hand Sanitizer1 and can be found all over the world, anywhere that people care about keeping people healthy and well.
Powered by this spirit of innovation, in the years after PURELL® Hand Sanitizer was created we have continued to develop ever-better solutions in hand hygiene. In 2006, we introduced a revolutionary line of touch-free wall- and counter-mount dispensing systems that made washing and sanitizing hands the most convenient yet.
Our commitment to sustainability leadership, which has its roots in Goldie and Jerry’s resourcefulness and sense of stewardship, has been a major influence in everything we do — from how we work to what we make. In 2010, we released PURELL® Green Certified Hand Sanitizer, the world’s first EcoLogo certified hand sanitizer. But it’s not just about sustainable products. We constantly evaluate our manufacturing processes, business partnerships, and community relationships to make sure we’re doing everything we can to make the world a better, healthier, safer place.
When we developed PURELL® Advanced Hand Sanitizer in 2011, we were able to create a step-change in formulation efficacy and reinforced our position as a leader in hand hygiene and skin health. This new formula delivers the most powerful, advanced antimicrobial kill while soothing hands and maintaining skin moisture2,3, and allowed us to continue to push the hand hygiene envelope.
Over the past 30 years, the PURELL® brand has become very meaningful to people as safe, effective, and good for you and the environment. Inspired by this “gold standard,” we went to work again in our labs in order to formulate, engineer, and design new solutions that would live up to the high expectations everyone has for the PURELL® brand. The launch of PURELL® Surface Disinfectant in 2019 the launch of the multi-category PURELL SOLUTION™ in 2018, with breakthrough soap formulations, like PURELL® brand HEALTHY SOAP™* products with CLEAN RELEASE™ Technology and the game-changing PURELL® ES8 Dispensing System with energy-on-the-refill, are the culmination of our years of passionate commitment, hard work, and inventiveness to drive toward our BHAG (“big hairy audacious goal”) to bring well-being to one billion people every day.
But our story doesn’t end here. Our GOJO Purpose of “Saving Lives and Making Lives Better through Well-Being Solutions” keeps us focused on bringing to market innovations that solve important human problems. This includes our revolutionary new hand hygiene systems like PURELL CXR REDIFOAM™, the top-fill counter mount fixture that eliminates the hassle and hazards of maintenance in high-traffic environments. We also developed SMARTLINK™ Electronic Monitoring Systems, a suite of technology solutions powered by “Internet of Things” (IoT)-enabled smart dispensing, aimed at driving down hospital-acquired infections, improving food safety, and making it more efficient and cost effective for facilities to keep soap and sanitizer available where and when they’re needed.
The PURELL brand has become very meaningful to people over the past 30 years and stands for safe, effective and good for you and the environment. Because of this, we worked for years in our labs in order to formulate, engineer and design new solutions that would live up to the high expectations of the PURELL® brand. The launch of PURELL® Surface Disinfectant and the PURELL SOLUTION™, with breakthrough soap formulations, like PURELL® brand HEALTHY SOAP™* products with CLEAN RELEASE™ Technology and the game changing PURELL® ES8 Dispensing System with energy-on-the-refill, is a culmination of our years of passionate commitment, hard work and inventiveness towards our effort to bring well-being to one billion people every day.