Ravi Underwood’s quest to find an organic cleaning product originated from his belief that Australians are living with too many chemicals, and that the side effects are harming the health of humans, animals and the natural environment.
Now he has cracked the code by capturing a natural compound that results from the reaction between salt, water and electricity.
“Everybody thinks that unless a product has a very powerful chemical, it doesn’t kill germs and doesn’t clean properly, but that’s not true,” Ravi said.
“After searching for a disinfectant that could be produced locally, we found a patented process that replicates a naturally-occurring molecule found in the human body, with no chemicals involved.”
Ravi, who is a chartered accountant by trade, formed a business partnership with chemical engineer Andrew Lawrence to manufacture Danolyte, which is now the only product of its kind approved by both the United States Food and Drug Administration and Australian Certified Organic.
Danolyte utilises a patented technology to replicate Hypochlorous Acid (HOCL), a naturally occurring molecule that plays an integral part in the human body’s immune response to pathogens.
“This is not a new concept. Your body makes HOCL naturally, but it can be man-made, and some American chemical engineers have devised a way to give it a longer shelf life,” Ravi explained.
“I liked it because it was such a simple concept. So I took it to Andrew, who has worked for Unilever, Colgate, Mars, Dairy Farmers and Visy Industries, and he agreed that we should make it available in Australia.”
The next step for Danolyte was to become an Australian Organic Limited member and to attain organic certification for the right to feature the green Bud logo on their product.
“We very quickly realised that there was a lot of value attached to the Australian Certified Organic Bud logo and that it would open a lot of doors. We had people who said they wouldn’t talk to us until we had ACO accreditation,” Ravi said.
“It was quite funny because our manufacturer initially said, ‘Oh don’t go down that path, it’s too hard.’ But his practices fitted exactly with what was required, and when we presented the standard and the audit checklist to our supplier, it was very straightforward.
“ACO accreditation is the single most important thing we’ve done.”
Danolyte disinfectants and sanitisers are registered and accredited for use against a broad range of viruses and bacteria including COVID-19, MRSA, HIV, listeria, influenza A, hepatitis C and salmonella.
The production capacity for Danolyte Global Inc’s Australian machine is 20,000 litres/month. The pair are hoping to fill it within the next three months and are focusing on large poultry farmers and primary producers to test the product at a discounted price, and to ensure production volume is warranted.
“We are hoping for a breakthrough with the cleaning companies and we’ve had inquiries from a few big hotel chains so we’ll investigate that path as well. All these people are ACO connections and they fit in with our vision of where we see this going,” said Ravi.
“We see the whole organic industry expanding rapidly, because we’ve got too many chemicals around us. People are more and more worried about what they’re putting into their bodies, what their kids and pets are exposed to, and what occurs naturally in the environment.”
There are other products in Australia marketed as ‘HOCL-based’, he said, but they’re not fully organic.
“Some of them claim to have a natural product but they can’t produce the kind of testing that we can. And nobody has US FDA approval. We are the only ones with FDA approval and ACO accreditation at this point.”
You can find out more about Danolyte and their certified organic solutions via their website.
