Tennant Company has strongly defended its advertising against recent claims filed by Germany-based Karcher and affirmed the effectiveness of its patented ec-H2O water-based cleaning technology. The company 
issued an official statement late September 2011.
“We are vigorously defending our company, technology and advertising against these baseless claims by a competitor,” said Chris Killingstad, Tennant’s president and chief executive officer. “We find it interesting that Karcher would attack our ec-H2O advertising now, after we have been in the marketplace for three years, satisfied thousands of customers and have 2011 projected sales of US$130 million to US$140 million.”
Tennant noted that, ‘This innovative technology has been tested by independent third parties and by Tennant’s customers, who include many of the world’s largest professional facility services providers.’
“In industries such as retail, warehousing, education and others, our customers have found that Tennant’s ec-H2O technology cleans their floors well in many day-to-day situations,” stated Killingstad.
“Its effectiveness has been validated in laboratories and in the field. Our customers also want to use less water and fewer chemicals, save money and improve productivity. Tennant’s ec-H2O technology delivers on all of these points. Our customers know it works because they have tested it and used it for themselves.”
The Tennant statement said that despite assertions in Karcher’s own report that there is no ‘fully appropriate standard’ for testing automatic scrubbers, Karcher bases its claims against Tennant’s advertisements on flawed tests from one laboratory in Germany. Its allegation that ec-H2O ‘does not have a cleansing effect’ is refuted by Tennant’s testing and three years of customer testing and experience as well as by findings in Karcher’s own report to the effect that ec-H2O performed identically to chemically based detergent in three out of four soil samples.
Moreover, the Karcher-sponsored tests were applied to unrealistic soil samples and failed to control for certain key variables, Tennant added.
The complete Tennant release can be sourced at:
www.tennantco.com/apac-en/Pages/Company/News.aspx