The Great Toilet Paper Caper of 2020
Supply Chain Logistics For Shut-ins: A Public Service Announcement
Things They Forgot To Tell Me in Business School

Like many people, I have been swept up in the great toilet paper crisis of 2020, a small speck of froth atop the COVID-19 tidal wave, engaged but knowing few details. Unlike most people, this got me wondering about the long and complicated path the little sheet of paper took from its humble beginning in the forest to its humble end at ...well, at my humble end. And this is what I have discovered.

Not exactly a glamour product, toilet paper is nonetheless a roll with a role on a roll. Global sales top USD $85 billion/year with a CAGR over 3% [Statista.com]. Demand for toilet paper points as steadily upward as any fast-moving consumer good. Not only more stable than other products, toilet paper doesn’t even suffer the seasonality of its sibling, tissue paper, or the optionality of paper towel. Elasticity only in movement between tiers - pillowy soft, two-ply, maybe three, just one?   

Boring? Usually, but not today! Today, toilet paper is front and center. Consumer stockpiling as COVID-19 sweeps across the world has led to toilet paper and related products flying off the shelves. Retail outlets have witnessed 400% jumps in sales overnight, limited only by supply, as consumers hunker down for the duration [l’usinenouvelle.com]. Miles of empty aisles, hoarding, fistfights over the last rolls, online price-gouging, it is all there. 

This has understandably thrown the global toilet paper industry into a flurry of activity. As we have learned, like so much of life, success comes down to logistics. A simplified global supply chain for toilet paper is not simple at all and looks something like this: Consumers freak out, empty shelves of all forms of toilet paper [1]. Stores [2] Refill shelves with available stock and order more from the distribution center [3]. The distribution center, faced with similar orders from each outlet, empties stocks, cross-checks with other hubs, and orders from either the label/brand owner [4] or the manufacturer directly [6]. At this point,  buyers in toilet paper importing nations may need to work through an export/import wholesaler [5]. Each player runs through existing inventory before heading to the machines. If the uptick is large and persistent enough to drain the entire supply chain, then in a manufacturing facility far far away a guy, possibly named Joe, will finally say «Hey Franco, we gotta get another shift on the toilet paper line starting Sunday, the sh*t has hit the fan and we need to clean up the mess». The manufacturer then turns toward its own supply chain for the paper it consumes, buying from a pulp and paper mill [7] that uses both local and imported [8] pulp material.











Manufacturers have some ability to ramp up production and toggle between products [toilet paper and paper towel production for example], but there is limited ability to absorb huge upward demand shocks as facilities are optimized to run at near fixed capacities. But rest assured, industry is doing all it can to respond to current needs. People are not using more of the product, but certain consumers have increased their personal inventories to the extent that none remains for others, a condition to which all players in the supply chain are responding. 

The force of the pending response will set us up nicely for the next installment of capitalism as it is and not as is should be, namely that of the great toilet paper crash of late 2021 as people stop buying in a market flooded with product in order to use up the stockpiles so recently acquired.

In researching this public service announcement I have gained increased respect for the humble «bog roll» and the many who ply their trade in bringing it to a market near me. The global supply chain, when working as intended, is an incredible thing to behold. So, as we sit pondering, reaching for a sheet, let us spare a moment for those who’ve had their hands on it [metaphorically] from its humble beginning to our humble end.

Toilet paper, the roll with a role on a roll.

;)