When are the new Soap Flakes in bags going to be available?

Have you ever had one problem lead to another? And then to another? That's kind of what's been going on around here.

It's a long story so buckle yourself in. :)

We actually placed an order--or at least tried to place an order--for more Soap Flakes in 1 lb. bags back in October 2007. To step back a little, all the way to January 2007, is probably where the story truly begins.

With the exception of one or two of our Soap Flakes imports, every import has arrived damaged. This is no ones fault in particular, there are just so many hands handling and transferring a shipment between England and the US, that all sorts of things happen.

Sometimes up to 30% of what we receive is damaged. This is cosmetic damage typically, not torn open boxes or bags leaking soap. Thankfully we've always sold this damaged stock to schools, church groups, and government organizations, usually for kid craft projects that require lots of Soap Flakes at a discount. But the January 2007 order was particularly bad. A lot of damage, it was just too much to mentally take.

Around that time--and unrelated--our contact person at Dri-Pak retired. Our comfortable communication link was severed. Fast forward to October 2007.

So there we are placing this order. But then we hear that the empty USA bag and box stock that is kept at Dri-Pak and filled as needed was destroyed in a flood!

The Erewash River overflowed and put the whole factory in 2 feet of water! The soap making equipment is on an upper floor and was untouched, however our empty stocks of Soap Flakes bags and boxes, made specially for the USA market, were ruined.

Look at the Erewash River Go



I later learned that at the time I was trying to place this order, Dri-Pak was experiencing trying situations with a couple of major customers. Their hands were full and they weren't sure they wanted to reinvest in the USA packaging materials that were lost in the flood.

We at MSO didn't know what to do either. On the one hand, we weren't happy with the recurring damage and strongly felt the loss of our contact person. But we wanted more soap.

But now, all of a sudden, all we could really do was buy bulk Soap Flakes in 9kg. bags (19.84 lbs.).

That's what we thought we'd do for a time, but we knew we needed smaller size packages too. We let things go and just drifted, hoping for some answers somehow.

The thought finally occurred to us to get a quote for having the bags re-made. The question was, should we at MSO invest in this, with Dri-Pak's name on the bags? Examining our customer files, and knowing our customers' familiarity with the Dri-Pak brand, we went with our gut and decided to go ahead and get more bags made.

However it also occurred to us to have the bags made in the US and packed with Dri-Pak Soap Flakes here, thus removing a good chunk of the damage we always seemed to incur during the travel from England to the US. We figured bulk Soap Flakes would travel better than the case packed ones did.

Dri-Pak was fine with this idea and in fact has since helped pay for the new bags. So we ordered some bulk Soap Flakes and began this "new" process.

We got the bag artwork updated a bit and found a company who would make new bags for us. No sooner had we sent them the artwork for printing, and two weeks go by without hearing anything from them.

We check with the sales rep and call the bag printing company and no one knows what is going on, nothing had been done. There were a couple of other issues also. Anyway, we decided to move on and use a different company to make the bags.

This proved more time-consuming than imagined. We finally found a company, and sent the artwork to them. They needed to tweak it and they weren't familiar with the material our original bags were made of...which prompted some research, which also took time.

Apparently we are back on track now, however printing still takes 4-5 weeks. I know, that seems long to me too, but after all we've gone through, little amazes me anymore.

Once we receive the completed bags, they will be sent to a contract packaging company in Grand Rapids, Michigan where the bags will be filled, sealed, and placed into cases. This should take two weeks. But not having gone through this before, who knows exactly how long this will take.

So I'm hesitant to set a date as to when we will have these new bags ready for sale, but I'll go on record as saying August 25. We'll just have to see what happens.

In the meantime, our supply of Soap Flakes in 1 lb. boxes is almost gone. Not to worry, we have over 2 tons of Dri-Pak soap in stock now, it's just not in the proper packages at the moment.

Some of this soap is going into the new 1 lb. Soap Flakes bags to get that operation started. The remaining soap is another story.

Remember how I mentioned having problems that turn into more problems? Well, when we placed our order for bulk Soap Flakes, to use them in our new bags, we didn't exactly receive Soap FLAKES.

There was damage and delays to the shipment, and when it arrived we examined a couple of bags. "That's funny", I said, "Where are the Soap Flakes?"

All I saw was soap powder. There were a few flakes here and there, but it was basically soap powder. What happened?

We asked Dri-Pak.

I knew part of the delay in this shipment was due to a temporary breakdown of Dri-Pak's production line. It was fixed as far as they knew, and that was that. Well apparently something wasn't quite right, and it didn't help that the soap base used to create the flakes was a bit too dry for some reason. But this dryness, and perhaps some machinery problems, ended up creating flakes that broke apart very easily, turning them into a soap powder.

This soap powder is still excellent soap, but how do we put it in bags marked Soap FLAKES and not prompt questions or legal concerns?

So we ordered more bulk Soap Flakes and I am happy to report, that they are actually flakes and will soon be inside of our new 1 lb. Soap Flakes bags.

We'll mark down the soap powder and inexpensively repack it into 3 pound, 8 pound. and 20 pound bags. We are in the the process of doing this right now.

I know people like Soap Flakes, but I have to say again that this powder is every bit as good as regular Soap Flakes are. Actually, the powder dissolves a little easier than the Soap Flakes do. The one downside is that the powder is a little bit more dusty. Still, we hope that this temporary solution will allow people to continue using the excellent pure soap Dri-Pak is known for, until we get the new 1 lb. Soap Flakes bags ready for sale.

As to the Soap Flakes in 1 lb. boxes that we are currently selling: at this time we don't know if we will continue to stock them or not. The boxes cost more than the bags even though there is the same amount of soap in them. The packaging itself is more expensive by quite a bit. The worst part is that every little dent, crush, and crease shows immediately and ruins the quality look of the box. The boxes are much more difficult to ship as well as we are unable to take full advantage of flat rate-shipping offered by the US Post Office because these Soap Flakes boxes do not comfortably fit into flat-rate boxes as well as our bags do.

I personally apologize for these delays and mixups. It's always been my intention to never run out of stock. To some degree we haven't actually run out of stock in that we still have plenty of Dri-Pak soap in our warehouse, but the smaller size packaging isn't quite there.

I hope repeat customers and first-time buyers can go along with this situation until August 25th. Once we get the regular 1 lb. bags of Soap Flakes available again, we'll do our best to never run out again. I promise.

Now you know nearly the whole story, there are a lot of other details, but I'm not certain they're that valuable to the overall story. Every little detail did take time and energy and caused various distractions and slowdowns.

Watch for some changes to our website. We will be offering some of that soap powder for sale and also Soda Crystals, which is Dri-Pak's flagship product. A very excellent multi-purpose cleaner that's been cleaning up England for over 150 years.

Thank you for reading this far and learning about what's been going on behind the scenes here. It's not pretty, but I felt you are owed an explanation.

Thanks again for your support and for your business.

--Mike