Sweeping kitchens clean: Entrepreneur sees big potential in tiny fibers

GREENLAND — Allan Coviello knows his way around a kitchen.

For 30 years he's been involved in retailing kitchen items and gourmet food at his own businesses and as a consultant. Now he's invested heavily in a product he thinks has huge potential and plans to capitalize on the "green" cleaning movement.

"I listen to the consumers and it's mind boggling. We're at the very beginning of a cycle," said the Greenland resident about demand for non-toxic cleaning products.

Coviello and business partner John Eaton, of Derry, have formed a company called TADgreen Inc. and are marketing a line of microfiber cleaning cloth called E-cloth. The firm bought the rights to distribute them in the U.S. and Caribbean.

The partners think the time is right to transform the American kitchen into a sparkling place free of the smell of disinfectant.

In the year since they started TADgreen, Coviello has placed the product at Hannaford's top 90 supermarkets and in regional natural product and gourmet shops, some drugstore chains and supplement catalogs. Personal Internet orders via www.ecloth.com add to the mix.

If Coviello can repeat his entrepreneurial track record, he won't be fulfilling individual website orders from his home office for much longer.

After working in Michigan as an engineer in the 1970s — he has a mechanical engineering degree and an MBA — Coviello joined his brother Bob on the Seacoast and they opened the Gallery of Gifts on Dover's Central Avenue.

They moved on from there to start Kitchen Etc. in North Hampton in 1983 and grew that into a 14-store, $60 million-a-year business before leaving it about nine years ago.

Coviello's been working as a consultant since, but was looking for the next blockbuster product when he found microfibers.

The concept excites him both as an engineer and a kitchen products guru.

So-called "microfiber" cleaning cloths have become a hit with U.S. consumers only recently, after their creation and wide acceptance in the European market.

The premise is that polyester and polyamide fibers are mechanically split so finely that they clean when wet by literally shaving off dirt, oil and bacteria from countertops, sinks, windows, etc. Washing the cloths with hot water removes the crud and they're ready for the next job.

This avoids the use of harmful chemical cleaners and the waste of disposable paper towels.

There are competitors in the U.S., but Coviello argues that his firm's E-cloth, which is made in Korea, remains true to the original and more expensive microfiber manufacturing process. This creates a much smaller fiber size than cheaper knockoffs. E-cloth fibers claim to be about 1,000th the width of a human hair.

This lets them get under and remove material at the molecular level.

E-cloths are estimated to last for 300 washes before losing their effectiveness. TADgreen markets them in a variety of packages with different types of cloths for different applications.

There are cloths for general kitchen use, for example, while others are sold for bathrooms, glass and windows, etc.

Sales have not yet hit $1 million, but they could grow quickly if several marketing efforts yield fruit.

One of them is Green 4 My School, a company from Massachusetts that's selling E-cloth to schools as an alternative ecologically friendly fundraising tool.

President Maria Rynne-Peterson said she's signed up four schools so far and thinks the profit potential and easy fulfillment process are no-brainers.

Schools make $5 on every E-cloth kitchen pack sold for $17.98. A customer orders on the Green4myschool.com website and E-cloth ships directly to them at no extra charge, with the school sent its cut.

"It took me a long time to find the perfect product that would support the school and help the Earth,"said Rynne-Peterson.

Meanwhile, Coviello is working with Lifelong Marketing, a Scarborough, Maine, web design firm to significantly upgrade the E-cloth website.

When the work is done this month, there will be more educational facts, streaming video of how to use all 20-plus E-cloth products and other features.

The beauty of selling a product everyone has use for is that your business collaborators often become your customers. Mike Diggins, president of Lifelong Marketing, likes to mention how he couldn't even see the windows in his house after using an E-cloth on them.

"They really have a great product," said Diggins.

It took extensive staff and infrastructure to maintain Kitchen Etc. in its heyday. Coviello is using a different business model with E-cloth.

Product shipments are sent to a contracted warehouse in Ossipee, which also fulfills bulk orders and will handle website orders as that business grows.

This has freed up the TADgreen partners to focus on marketing at trade shows and other venues. They have no employees and farm out almost all aspects of the business.

Coviello thinks E-cloth would be perfect for a direct-response TV marketing effort, but doesn't have the capital yet to add this to the mix. He said he wouldn't turn away investors if they came knocking so he could increase sales.

Mostly, E-cloth could be the venture that he eventually retires on.

"I sincerely believe that we're doing good with this product and if I can grow this and retire 10 years from now, then that would be great," he said.

For more information go to www.ecloth.com or call 1-800-677-4354.