A process for manufacturing detergent particles comprising the steps of: a) forming a liquid
surfactant blend comprising a major amount of surfactant and a minor amount of water, the surfactant part consisting of at least 51 wt %
linear alkylbenzene sulfonate and at least one co-surfactant, the
surfactant blend consisting of at most 20 wt %
nonionic surfactant; b)
drying the liquid
surfactant blend of step (a) in an
evaporator or drier to a
moisture content of at most 2 wt % and cooling the output from the
evaporator or dryer; c) feeding the cooled material, which output comprises at least 93 wt % surfactant blend with a major part of LAS, to an extruder, optionally along with less than 10 wt % of other materials such as perfume, fluorescer, and extruding the surfactant blend to form an extrudate while periodically
cutting the extrudate to form hard detergent particles with a
diameter across the extruder of greater than 2 mm and a thickness along the axis of the extruder of greater than 0.2 mm, provided that the
diameter is greater than the thickness; d) optionally,
coating the extruded hard detergent particles with up to 30 wt %
coating material selected from powdered inorganic material and mixtures of such material and nonionic material with a
melting point in the range 40 to 90° C.