The inspiration…

In 2012, Ted Coté, Guy Adams and Laurence Gorlick embarked on a mission to make toxic cleaning products obsolete. They founded Green Way Laboratories in Long Beach, California.

From a safety and compliance perspective, Coté knew that everyday people at home and at work were using toxic cleaning products that were so harmful they required personal protective equipment like gloves and respirators.

As a LEED-Certified building and HVAC professional, Adams saw the hypocrisy of toxic cleaning products being used to maintain so-called green buildings, and the harmful effects that workers in those fields suffered from toxic exposure.

As a physician working with patients in heavy industries, such as Marine and Transportation, Laurence Gorlick, M.D., was well aware of the negative health effects from short and long-term exposure to toxic chemicals. Together, the three saw an opportunity to create an alternative to toxic cleaning products.

The First Product…

With the help of Thomas Bakehorn, a chemist with over thirty years of experience, Adams researched, identified and tested newly developed plant-based components that originated from sustainable, non-petroleum resources. Our collective mission was to create a naturally powerful non-toxic formula. After months of arduous testing, Green Way Labs perfected their first proprietary formula, which was trademarked “MastiClean.” The name was inspired by the formula’s ability to break down and remove notoriously tough substances like roofing mastic, tar and adhesives, which historically require harsh, aggressive, toxic solvents (even gasoline) to remove.

The First Buyers…

We knew we had something special that could disrupt the use of toxic chemicals. Green Way applied for a patent and quickly introduced the formula to Ferguson Industrial Supply, a national chain of professional-grade plumbing supply houses who agreed to carry the product in 50+ stores in Southern California in the form of wet wipes. User reactions to the product were extremely positive and in 2013, Green Way entered into a private label sell agreement with the Henry Company, the nation’s largest manufacturer of roofing materials. Within 12 months, The Home Depot and Canadian Tire carried the private labeled product under the names Henry Scrubbers and Airport Grade Scrubbers.

Successfully Patented!

In September 2014, Green Way Labs received their first patent and the product received the Clean Air Choice Cleaner award by the South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) and received NSF certification to be used around the preparation of food. In that same year, aerospace giant Boeing Aircraft Company and Pacific Crane and Maintenance in the Long Beach Port approved the product for use at their facilities.

Gaining Support…

In December 2014, Green Way Labs become a portfolio company of the Los Angeles Clean Tech Incubator. In April of 2015, the 500 Startups Accelerator Program in Silicon Valley (www.500.co) invested in Green Way Labs as a Portfolio Company. During that time, Green Way Labs developed a complete line of consumer branded cleaning products under the trademarked brand “VERDAY.” The name was inspired by the Latin word “verde,” which means “green.” Grainger and 135 Lowes stores in California, Arizona, Nevada and Hawaii began to carry the Henry Scrubbers private labeled product. In August, the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority approved MastiClean for use.

Where we are now…

Green Way Labs is currently focusing on the industrial side of their business where they have the greatest traction and lower cost of sales, however, the company is currently raising capital to launch their promising consumer brand VERDAY. The company has a pipeline of high-performance cleaning products and accessories for a variety of applications. The company has two key criteria when developing and launching the product:

1) The product must be considered eco-friendly, meaning that all active components of the formula must be from sustainable resources, pH balanced, hypo-allergenic, EPA and REACH-approved, non-toxic, non-corrosive, non-flammable and non-reactive. 

2) The product must be equal to, but preferably outperform competing toxic alternatives. Since 2012, the team has grown to include Zack Gorlick, Rick White, Marylou Garcia and Mark Will.

A Holistic Approach…

Green Way Labs is also working with other independent organic, metabolic and colloidal micelles chemical formulators in the United States and other countries to round out their family of green, high-performance cleaning products. All of their products are manufactured in the United States and all packaging is 100% recyclable.

MastiClean is our industrial brand of high-performance cleaning products and are sold primarily through authorized industrial distributors to a variety of vertical industries. MastiClean comes in a variety of form factors ranging from ready-to-use wipes and spray to bulk packaging and concentrate. 

Original product demo video.

VERDAY is our consumer brand of high-performance cleaning products. Our complete supply chain is in place and prepared for large scale production. GWL can manufacture finished products within three weeks of receiving raw materials. The products are all proprietary and are manufactured in the United States in Mount Laurel, New Jersey and Bensalem, Pennsylvania.

Kickstarter Campaign Video.

To date, we have intentionally held back the production and distribution of the VERDAY consumer line to focus our resources on our industrial brand MastiClean. Upon successfully closing a Series A round of financing, GWL intends to produce and sell the VERDAY product line in the U.S. Mexico, the UK, Ireland and select European countries where green products are in demand.

GWL is conducting a direct-to-consumer pilot program in the UK and Ireland with German-based HASSLE.com who provides on-demand house cleaning services across Europe. HASSLE sends sample size kits of VERDAY products to new clients and promotes VERDAY as their cleaning product of choice in exchange for a recurring commission. The VERDAY product pipeline also includes eco-friendly laundry detergent, dish soap and our own patented Step-Back Mop system, and a variety of superior quality micro-fiber towels and hand pads. VERDAY also has a unique product designed to clean glass and mirrors perfectly, using only water. This product is called the Magic Glass Cloth. This product has garnered interest from a number of large and specialty retailers and is currently being sold separately to open doors for the entire VERDAY product line.

VERDAY Cleaning Prank

Green Way Labs (GWL) received our first patent (U.S. Patent #8,845,817) on our proprietary formula trademarked "MastiClean" in September 2014. Original product demo video.

GWL was selected as portfolio company of the Los Angeles Clean Tech Incubator in December 2014

GWL was selected by 500 Startups for investment in April 2015. See demo day presentation. 

GWL is currently selling private-labeled product under the brand name Henry Scrubbers for the Henry Company at The Home Depot, Lowes and other industrial distributors. GWL also distributes the MastiClean brand through limited distribution (11 Southern California locations) by Ferguson Industrial Supply. Since our product was patented, GWL has had total revenue of $416K.

GWL is sponsoring (with product) Circle Sport Leavine Family Racing in the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Read about how that came to be.

In July 2016, Industial Distribution Group (IDG) became an authorized distributor for the U.S. motorsports industry.

General Tool, a Motion Industries company became an authorized distributor in June 2016 and will be supplying MastiClean to industrial accounts, including Boeing who has approved MastiClean for use in their facilities for the removal of Cosmoline.

In 2016, GWL acquired an option for 130K euro to purchase JSK Eco Solutions, a small company based in Cork, Ireland for a fixed purchase price of 500K euro in two years. JSK has additional proprietary eco-friendly products that compliment both MastiClean and VERDAY. JSK sells direct to commercial clients and has annual revenues of 500K euro and growing. They also add key talent in R & D, logistics and have production and distribution capabilities to service those markets.

In 2016, GWL became an active member of MANA and has secured six manufacturer's rep agencies to represent and pioneer GWL products. Collectively these 6 agencies have 48 sales reps covering the U.S. 

In June of 2016, GWL entered into an agreement with Lat AM Imagine, a company based in Puebla, Mexico who will be representing GWL in Mexico and other Latin America countries to setup distribution and possible future manufacturing in Mexico.

We leveraged the latest science to create a whole new kind of cleaning product that outperforms the competition, is safe on skin, all other surfaces, and has positive effects on environments big and small.

Our next-generation green-cleaning technology truly outshines the competition in performance, safety, and sustainability. That’s good news for the home and at work— and great news for the environment.

The standards Green Way Labs has set for itself are as follows: each active component within our formula must be both EPA and REACH approved. REACH is equivalent to the EPA in Europe. The overall rating for our formulas must be classified as 0-0-0-0 on the hazard materials identification system labels required by OSHA. The rating can range from 0 to 4. Our formulas are pH balanced (which prevents them from being corrosive to skin and other materials) and they do not react with other substances (some chemicals react with other chemicals - ours do not) and do not require the user to wear personal protective equipment. Our standards include having zero VOCs and certification by the NSF to be used around the preparation of food.

Despite a growing number of cleaning products with various "natural", "eco-friendly" claims. Our advantage stems from our specific formulas and their sheer performance. Most, if not all cleaning products in the category sacrifice on performance and have to rely mainly on pretty packaging, which builds a so-so loyalty to the brand. Although some consumers will compromise on cleaning performance in order to go green, many will not. They often revert to legacy brands. In the case of GWL products, they were developed as industrial-strength formulas that have to outperform well-known toxic brands because the average pro user doesn't necessarily care if it is green or not. Before releasing a formula for packaging, we conduct extensive testing using special linear washing equipment which allows us to quantitatively measure and compare our performance against other products. If we find that we are underperforming for cleaning a particular substance from a particular surface, we are able to adjust the strength of our formulas or customize the formula for that application.