New York City Metropolitan area is going through hard times with high inflation and unemployment. The coincidence of the recent swine flu media frenzy in the USA with the ongoing world economic crisis might improve the status of pocket tissue in the country, though. While the reported sales numbers of this product from major supermarket and drug store chains is showing a slight decrease, discount chains such as Jacks World that offer high- quality pocket tissue are enjoying brisk trade. Jacks World is an extremely popular urban discount hypermarket chain offering a broad range of merchandize from foodstuff to electronics and household goods at a pocket change price.

The major pocket tissue supplier for discounters as well as for a growing number of regular supermarkets is Delta Brands located in New York City suburbs and offering high-quality three-ply tissue Lucky Supersoft made in Turkey and China (Delta declined a TW request for an interview ).

Today you can buy Chinese made threeply pocket tissue in discount stores for a fraction of the supermarket price of Kleenex. Bundles of eight, 10 or even 12 packs of threeply white virgin pocket hankies sell for $0.99, which makes the price of a single 10 piece pack about $.09 to $.013, while local supermarkets offer similar Kleenex two and three-ply brands costing at least 2-3 times more. The economics of these transactions still amazes me.

A one-hour drive from Manhattan Island, at New Jersey shopping malls, you can buy a luxury four-ply Sniff brand pocket tissue. Sniff is the Mercedes of pocket hankies, comparable in quality with the famous Tempo brand. This product as well as table napkins are marketed by Paper Products Design (PPD) located in California and manufactured in Germany. The company claims over 250 Sniff design patterns and over 500 patterns for party napkins.

Each Sniff pack contains 10 flexo printed pieces and they are sold mostly by online retailers. PPD also claims that the upscale Whole Foods supermarket chain carries its products. However, the Whole Foods store representative denied it, stating that the Sniff product does not fit the store’s policy offering organic and green foodstuff and goods. Indeed they sell the Seventh Generation 100% recycled post-consumer toilet tissue and napkins.

I have found a sizeable display of Sniffs (see picture) at the chain store Five Below near Jersey shore. Five Below sells party goods and beach products at discount prices (five Sniff packs for $5 or $1.25 for one –which is much below the on-line retail price). Five Below stores are not on the list of PPD references and again some mysterious local ways come to mind. Like Delta Brands, PPD declined to be interviewed by TW, claiming that its products have been copied by so many - in Europe, USA and China, that they do not feel that any exposure in a trade magazine read by tissue manufacturers would be of any benefit to the company.

A recent newcomer to retail consumer products, PurelyCotton, has fallen victim to the economic crisis and shut down. The company was founded several years ago as an American-Indian owned operation and was promoting its line of toilet tissue, napkins and pocket hankies made of cotton. PurelyCotton claimed that its hankies were made of 100% cotton, were lint-free and without wood fibre from trees, making them gentler on the environment than conventional tissue goods.

With low exposure to the market, though, the product was not competitive enough to survive the reality of today’s world despite obvious advantages related to cotton material and a green message.