Adaptability, strategic foresight, and agility key in rapidly changing landscape
Eight out of 10 Americans now wash their hands more diligently than before Covid. Good news, and good for tissue as personal hygiene becomes more important. How do we know? The Healthy Handwashing Survey says so. That there is such a survey is encouraging in itself.
Weightier revelations and forecasts focussed on North America but globally relevant come in a comprehensive analysis in MarketIssues by AFRY Management Consulting. It covers this extraordinary decade, and with the proviso that accurate forecasting “among many moving pieces” is more complex, it nevertheless rises to the challenge.
Among the moving pieces: RTO mandates, immigration policies, tariffs, economic uncertainty, disruption from climate change, geopolitical fragmentation, digitalisation, managing AI, M&A, population decline, overcapacity, private label’s rise … and the evolutionary changes attendant on new era technology.
Italy: innovation and sustainability are core drivers
Like most economies, Italy’s is emerging from tougher times. TWM’s Country Report covers the progression from high inflation years of reduced disposable income, to the recent evidence of greater spending power.
All sector volume growth now tops pre-pandemic levels. Italy’s historic prominence remains: leader in tissue production and exports; technology and equipment spans the world; Lucca alone hosts more than 140 paper mills and converters.
Some trends need attention: the population is ageing and declining; some mill machinery needs upgrading. But strong undercurrents have emerged: AfH paper tablecloths are a dynamic category; more localised supply chains will embrace a rich variety in regional tastes … all calling for technical advance and artistic expression in quality, patterns, colours, and sizes.
Tissue demand back to long-term trend after the rollercoaster
Manufacturers maintained relatively elevated margin returns as inflation eased, and Numera Analytics illustrates just how dynamic the results can be when an economy picks up. Purchasing power in Europe, measured by real wages, fell by 6% 2022-23. The US drop was roughly 2%. Come 2024, while North American saw a recovery in tissue demand of 2.1%, Europe’s rose by 5.4%.
‘Skinification’ potentially huge tissue growth
Skin health facial tissue … and beauty treatment. An ‘adjacent’ niche product for decades is moving at relative speed. The multi-continental region leading the surge is Asia Pacific, the “largest tissue region by dollar of consumption.”
By 2028, in ExitIssues, Euromonitor International’s Liying Qian suggests 53% of its total incremental tissue sales growth will be in beauty tissue.
