Natural beauty care products maker Dr. Hauschka is turning down offers
for new markets at a time when rivals are struggling to persuade
consumers to pay up for cosmetics.

WALA, a medium-sized company based in the sleepy German village of Bad
Boll near Stuttgart, rose to fame after Hollywood star Julia Roberts
and pop stars like Madonna and Kylie Minogue discovered its Dr.
Hauschka natural cosmetics.

Surfing on a green wave of growing demand for organic products from
food to furniture, WALA’s natural remedies and beauty products are now
available in more than 30 countries and keep attracting interest from
distributors across the world.

“We have many requests, but we turn down most of them,” WALA Chief Executive Johannes Stellmann told Reuters in an interview.

Based on the teachings of Austrian social philosopher Rudolf Steiner,
WALA does not believe in pushing aggressively into new markets, but
rather waits for demand to find it.

Finding sufficient high-quality ingredients and skilled staff are the
main constraints to growth for WALA, which competes with brands like
Weleda, Lavera, Logocos, Primavera and Santaverde in the global market
for natural cosmetics.

The market has been growing about 16 percent annually over the past two
to three years and generated sales of $6.9 billion in 2007, research
and consulting company Organic Monitor said, expecting to see similar
growth rates this year.

WALA expects anything between a 10 percent rise or fall in 2009 growth,
having more than doubled sales since 2000, reaching 103 million euros
($136 million) in 2008. “But we count on medium- to long-term growth,”
Stellmann said.

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