Fairy Liquid remains the nation's favourite washing-up liquid though sales remained flat last year at £104m, according to ACNielsen figures to 7 October for The Grocer's Top Products Survey [16 December 2006].

The brand has innovated with new scents such as passion flower storm and strawberry flame.

But the key attribute consumers demand is the "unbeatable cleaning performance" for which Fairy is famous, says Paul Lettice, trade communications manager at P&G. "Fairy continues to win best-buy awards," he claims.

Washing up liquid has a battle on its hands as busy consumers rely on dishwashers, and Fairy is in on the act.

Sales of its main auto dishwash line rocketed 388% last year to £17.7m.

"Last year Fairy introduced products that allowed households to wash dishes using less water and energy - products that perform well on short or low-temperature cycles," says Lettice.

There's huge potential in the automatic dishwashing detergent category because UK market penetration is fairly low, according to Reckitt Benckiser's brand manager for dishwash, Thomas Barkholt. "In Germany 64% of households have a dishwasher compared with only 33% of UK households. So there is an undeveloped market for additives such as dishwasher cleaners and fresheners."

Within the automatic dishwashing detergent category, Reckitt Benckiser's Finish is number one with sales up 2.6% to £113m. Finish does well in consumer tests and came out top in a test by Which?

New products from Reckitt Benckiser include Finish Quantum with "revolutionary" three-chamber technology, which it claims enabled the inclusion of a combination of ingredients not possible in one single detergent before.

Finish Quantum falls into the mono-dose or tablets segment of the market, which continues to be the largest segment within automatic dishwashing detergent (about 80% of the volume sold) and is still growing strongly at about 12.2%, according to Barkholt.

Fairy's Active Bursts mono-dose line is described by Lettice as "the market's only no-need-to-unwrap, liquid-plus powder capsule".

"Effective consumer communication is key to the brand's success," adds Lettice. "Fairy invests in above and below-the-line communications to guarantee consumers understand the product's benefits."

David Briscoe, market analyst for Surcare, says we can expect more powerful products.

"One single tablet with dissolvable wrapping is as advanced as it can get - unless it unloads the dishwasher for you."

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