Global chemical and ingredients distributor Univar announced the extension of its exclusive agreement in Italy with Hallstar to include five additional countries: Spain, Portugal, Greece, France, and Benelux.

"Hallstar’s competency in esters is unmatched. Their core capabilities, including their leading platform of functional naturals, are essential to the formulation of next generation beauty and personal care products," said Matthew Ottaway, vice president of Focused Industries for Univar EMEA. "The Hallstar product range further enriches our European product catalog and allows us to bring a more holistic portfolio to our customers. As a result, we improve our ability to work with customers to create custom high-performance formulations, allowing them to quickly bring superior products to market."

With this expanded agreement, Univar now offers the following products across southern Europe and up to Benelux:

 Natural Exotic Oils (Biochemica®)
 Natural butters (Biochemica®)
 Photostabilizers (Hallbrite® Solastay® Polycrylene®)
 Mineral UV Filter Systems (Hallbrite®)
 Antioxidants (Eurol® Biochemica®)
 Emulsifiers/ Surfactants (Olivem® and Florasolvs®)
 Emollients (Olivem® Sensolene® Florasolvs®)
 Solubilizers (Hallbrite® Spectrasolv®)
 Stabilizing agents (Oliwax®)
 Active ingredients (Eurol®)

"We are very pleased to expand our partnership with Univar’s Beauty & Personal Care team in Europe," said Robert Hu, Hallstar’s vice president, EMEA. "Our end-users in France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Benelux will benefit from the outstanding support from Univar’s market-focused technical sales team and laboratories. It is reassuring to know that distribution of Hallstar’s specialty performance-based, functional and natural product portfolio of photo protection, and butters and oils is in Univar’s very experienced and supremely capable hands."