Nearly one year after Norfolk County farmer Andy Pasztor launched AndyClean High Performance Cleaner, product popularity has grown and it is now available exclusively through the John Deere parts network.
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Marketed with the tagline “Good Clean Fun,” the apple-scented soap can be purchased in one-gallon or five-gallon quantities at any dealer location in Canada and the U.S.
“It’s all luck how I got connected with the people who take care of the cleaning products inside the John Deere system,” says Pasztor, who was previously selling directly to individual dealers. “It’s still early but demand is growing and people who have contacted me because they couldn’t find the soap in their area can now get it.”
Despite the new method of distribution, he still owns and operates the AndyClean business and uses the same Guelph-based manufacturer with which he initially developed the product. It took months to fine-tune the soap and test it with a group of “super particular” Ontario farmers, he says.
“The biggest compliment I get is when folks stop by and show me pictures of their equipment they’ve washed with the soap and tell me how well it works,” Pasztor tweeted from the recent National Farm Machinery Show in Louisville, Kentucky.
In addition to in-person farm events, Pasztor connects with AndyClean fans and fellow equipment enthusiasts on social media, where he now has more than 40,000 followers.
After all, it’s the farm community on Twitter that inspired the soap business in the first place.
Pasztor, who grows corn, soybeans and vegetables with his dad and brother near Tillsonburg, started posting pictures of his meticulously maintained tractors on Twitter in 2014.
Fellow farmers appreciated his passion and when Robert Reese from Michigan used hashtag #AndyClean, it caught on.
“Farmers are pretty humble people,” says Pasztor. “They don’t want to post a photo and tell people to look at how awesome and clean their equipment is, so instead they just add the hashtag.”
photo:
Supplied
In 2018, John Deere’s marketing team took notice and sent Pasztor a package of cleaning supplies. They surprised him further by developing a logo and shipping him a huge box of AndyClean stickers.
The brand really took off when Pasztor started mailing stickers to people he met through Twitter. Farmers worldwide began posting photos using the hashtag and asking if their equipment qualified for a sticker. He was shocked when the AndyClean logo was spotted on a teaser photo posted before the launch of the X9 combine series in 2020.
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As the hype continued, Pasztor was repeatedly asked what kind of cleaning products he uses, which led him to manufacture his own.
“I would have never guessed in a million years that I’d be doing anything like this,” he says. “The stuff I get to do, the places I go and the people I have got to meet have all been awesome.”
While the soap business comes second to farming, Pasztor says the model is really based around fun.
“There are stressful things about it but in the grand scheme of things, it’s only soap and we’ll see where it goes.
“You have to be profitable because it costs money to travel and do stuff, but I don’t really have any expectations,” he says, noting he considers any profits from the soap business to be gravy that will help the farm.
Pasztor can be found on Twitter @apasztor82 and Instagram @iamandyclean.
