Rem Brands Inc., located in unincorporated Boone County, manufactures patented chemistry and proprietary technology targeted toward odor elimination and stain removal.
Their ODOGard technology was recently selected as a top-three candidate for the IDEA Raw Material Achievement Award for INDA, the Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry.
“It’s a company that our dad [David Schneider] started about a decade, or so ago,” Josh Schneider said. “He’s a Ph.D. chemist, and he has started and sold companies in the past. He was a CEO of a public company as well but liked the private industry a lot better. There’s a lot less regulation and stuff to deal with, I guess, but it’s all chemicals. And this one is all-around odor control and antimicrobial technologies. And then I’m the oldest, and when I graduated from school, I came and started working for him in 2014-15. So, seven or eight years or so now, and then when Jon [Josh’s brother] graduated the next year, he’s been here almost as long. He [David Schneider] started a bunch of different chemical companies’ iodine and other things like that. But this is all antimicrobial and odor control that we do here.”
According to Josh Schneider, Rem Brand’s oldest running product is their Zero Odor spray. The spray is sold in Bed Bath and Beyond, Walgreens, the Container Store, and online at Amazon. The product uses ODOGard technology.
They then started using different formulas of the ODOGard technology in hygiene products such as diapers, pet pads, bed pads, feminine care products, and other disposable hygiene articles.
Jon Schneider calls other odor banning technologies “junk.”
“In a technical-scientific way, they actually do not work,” Jon Schneider said. “So, when you look at odor as a whole, there’s only a couple ways that you can actually take it out. You can filter it out of the air to a certain degree. It’s not as efficacious as you would think. But things like carbon and very, very dense air filters. They can take odors out of the air to a certain degree but not 100%. The only other way that you can literally eliminate the odor is to chemically bond with it or chemically break it apart. Our technology actually chemically bonds to the odor, and we’re the only technology on the planet that does that.”
The thing that sets ODOGard apart from the big household names like Febreze is Febreze covers up the odor with fragrance, and ODOGard eliminates smells with no scent in the product. Since their dad obtained the initial patents for the idea around ODOGard, it has been many years of refining the formulas to keep making a better product.
“So, they can’t use their technology like we do in diapers, in trash bags,” Josh Schneider said. “So, the initial issue or problem in the market was that the odor control technologies that worked only worked with massive amounts of fragrance and the other ones straight didn’t work at all. So, the market was begging for a technological approach to odor, and we know the only real way to do that is through chemistry.”
Though both brothers work for Rem Brands Inc., neither has a background in chemistry. Josh Schneider graduated from Northern Kentucky University with formal training as an attorney. Jon Schneider went to NKU for his undergrad and got a bachelor’s in Science in Business and minors in mathematics, physics and entrepreneurship. He then went to The University of Kentucky and studied at the Medical College, where he got a degree in nutritional science.
The technology for ODOGard has been nominated by INDA for the IDEA Raw Material Achievement Award. The award is solely based on the number of votes each nominee receives. Rem Brands Inc. is up against Bast Fibre Technologies Inc. and Sharon Laboratories, larger companies than Rem Brands.
“The significance of this award is that we do something completely and totally separate from everyone else on this list,” Josh Schneider said. “Almost everyone on the list is doing something with a media substrate like synthetics or components that go into a diaper. The elastic on the diaper or the color of it, even on the list, is wipes that people do, like the biodegradable wipes or wipes that you can use walking around Disney World. They have all that stuff on here. But ours is completely different. We’re actually a raw material that you put in the raw materials for the industry. So compared to everybody else, we’re definitely the most out there compared to the other people on the list. The significance of it is we beat out probably half a dozen other suppliers or manufacturers for this type of award.”
The winner will be announced at the IDEA22 Achievement Awards Show on March 30 between 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. in front of hundreds of industry professionals.
If you would like to vote for Rem Brands, Inc ODOGard, click here.
