Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel Bam Here. The good people who
Speaker 1: make toilet paper and get it onto the shelves of
Speaker 1: our local stores have been telling us for weeks that
Speaker 1: we have nothing to worry about. You'll have your sharmin,
Speaker 1: they say, you're quilted, Northern and angel softened. Fill in
Speaker 1: the store brand here will be there for you. But
Speaker 1: anyone who has been shopping lately knows, more than a
Speaker 1: month into a worldwide pandemic, the paper aisle remains an
Speaker 1: unmitigated disaster area. So is it ever going to get better?
Speaker 1: And of all things, why toilet paper in the first place.
Speaker 1: When consumers of toilet paper first became aware of the
Speaker 1: novel coronavirus and the possibly lengthy stay at home orders
Speaker 1: that seemed sure to follow, the reaction generally fell one
Speaker 1: of two ways. Oh One, let's wait and see see
Speaker 1: how this thing shakes out, see if all this fuss
Speaker 1: is for not? And two battened down the bathroom hatches
Speaker 1: were in here for the long haul. Better stock up.
Speaker 1: Back in early March in the United States, it seemed
Speaker 1: as if the panic buyers and the hoarders clearly had
Speaker 1: won out, but the perception of a looming shortage may
Speaker 1: not be entirely accurate. Despite the empty shelves. We spoke
Speaker 1: Georgia Pacific spokesperson Eric Abercrombie. Georgia Pacific is one of
Speaker 1: the leading makers of toilet paper in the United States,
Speaker 1: the company behind angel Soft toilet tissue and Brawny Paper towels.
Speaker 1: Abercrombie said, I wouldn't say that there's a shortage because
Speaker 1: there is paper fibers still available, There's still trees were
Speaker 1: still making it. The raw materials are there. We're working
Speaker 1: with our third party vendors for our packaging needs. Those
Speaker 1: products are there for us to package. It's just a
Speaker 1: matter of time for it to be made and get
Speaker 1: out to the stores. Still, the threat of a shortage
Speaker 1: leads to something that Georgia Pacific's Kim Sackie calls four
Speaker 1: oh fear of running out. That explains panic buying and hoarding.
Speaker 1: Saki told The Chicago Sun Times, if you run out
Speaker 1: of green beans, you can go without green beans. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of things you can substitute. There really
Speaker 1: aren't a lot of substitutes for toilet paper. Greediness and
Speaker 1: fear of being left with an empty roll on the
Speaker 1: dispenser doesn't completely answer why many shelves are still cleaned out,
Speaker 1: though another explanation may lie in a simple supply and
Speaker 1: demand formula. More people at home plus more time at
Speaker 1: home equals greater demand at home. Instead of making use
Speaker 1: of facilities on campus, in office buildings, at restaurants and
Speaker 1: coffee shops and bars, or even at rest stops or airports,
Speaker 1: many people are staying home and using their home facilities.
Speaker 1: The bottom line, sorry, may be as simple as this.
Speaker 1: As a nation, we're almost certainly not going more during
Speaker 1: these trying times. We're just going more at home, and
Speaker 1: right now we don't have enough at home product to
Speaker 1: meet a surging demand. Anyone who's ever made a stop
Speaker 1: in a public toilet and peeled off a line of
Speaker 1: sand papery one ply knows the difference between commercial and
Speaker 1: at home tissue. Abercrombie said, on the consumer side, we
Speaker 1: saw a two times demand back in mid March, so
Speaker 1: we quickly are trying to adjust the operations to meet
Speaker 1: that demand. According to Abercrombie, siting statistics from Information Resources Incorporated,
Speaker 1: a market research company based in Chicago, that demand is heavy.
Speaker 1: An average United States household of two point six people
Speaker 1: uses four hundred and nine equivalized rolls of toilet paper
Speaker 1: per year, equivalized roles being kind of an average sized
Speaker 1: role among all the mega and double rolls. Consider a
Speaker 1: job that takes a third of a day, not counting commutes,
Speaker 1: or a school day that takes somewhere around that at
Speaker 1: in time, eating out, in various other time away from home.
Speaker 1: Now roll up all that away from home time and
Speaker 1: add it to stay at home time. Staying home GP
Speaker 1: figures would mean around at increase in at home toilet
Speaker 1: tissue use, and that means, by GPS counting, a two
Speaker 1: person household would need about nine double rolls or five
Speaker 1: megas to last two weeks during this pandemic. A four
Speaker 1: person household seventeen doubles or nine megas for two weeks.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a lot if it's accurate. It also
Speaker 1: sounds like a good argument that actual need, as much as,
Speaker 1: or maybe more than, greed is what's keeping grocery store
Speaker 1: shelves barren. Georgia Pacific has fourteen facilities that make bath
Speaker 1: tissue and paper towels, both retail and commercial in eleven states.
Speaker 1: Those places employ around seven thousand, five hundred workers. They're
Speaker 1: working at about one and twenty percent capacity, Abercrombie says,
Speaker 1: and they're not alone. We also spoke by email with
Speaker 1: Lauren Fanroy, a presentative for Procter and Gamble. They said,
Speaker 1: we're producing and shipping Sharman at record high levels. We're
Speaker 1: currently manufacturing and shipping. Demand continues to outpace supply, but
Speaker 1: we're working diligently to get product to our retailers as
Speaker 1: fast as humanly possible so everyone can continue to enjoy
Speaker 1: the go. So what else can be done? All consumers
Speaker 1: can do at this point is sit and wait for
Speaker 1: manufacturers to catch up. The good people that make all
Speaker 1: that toilet paper are already tugging at the supply chain,
Speaker 1: increasing and varying production where they can, and looking for
Speaker 1: efficiencies in packaging and distribution. Heidi Brock, the president of
Speaker 1: the American Forest and Paper Association, said in a statement.
Speaker 1: This situation is highly dynamic and changing daily, and the
Speaker 1: industry is working diligently to respond to the spike in
Speaker 1: demand for TISSOO products due to coronavirus COVID nineteen purchases.
Speaker 1: The rest assured Tishoot products continue to be produced and
Speaker 1: shipped just as they are fifty two weeks each year
Speaker 1: as part of a gable market. Toilet paper manufacturers are
Speaker 1: clearly not meeting that demand quite yet. The TP supply
Speaker 1: chain has a lot of moving parts. It's not as
Speaker 1: simple as switching a machine from scratchy one ply to
Speaker 1: cooshy two ply, or from mega commercial rolls to a
Speaker 1: double at home sizes. There's the packaging to The companies
Speaker 1: will have to print more plastic wrap and already are
Speaker 1: for more home use packages, you know, with the clouds
Speaker 1: or bears or bunnies or kitties on them, and they'll
Speaker 1: do fewer of the boxes that go to stores and businesses.
Speaker 1: Shipping and storage also remain a challenge. A toilet paper,
Speaker 1: as relatively bulky and light as it is, never has
Speaker 1: been an awfully efficient cargo to get from manufacture to
Speaker 1: store shelf. You can only get so many rolls on
Speaker 1: a truck. Nobody likes to use storage space on huge
Speaker 1: packages of toilet paper either. Furthermore, the product's bulk may
Speaker 1: encourage panic purchases, since fewer packages of toilet paper can
Speaker 1: fit on one consumer facing shelf than some other products.
Speaker 1: It may appear the stores running low more quickly once
Speaker 1: a few packages are gone. We also spoke with David Kloss,
Speaker 1: the John H. McConnell Chair Emeritus of the Department of
Speaker 1: Supply Chain Management at Michigan State University's broad College of Business.
Speaker 1: He said, it's not easy the relationships. If you're going
Speaker 1: through the commercial industry, it's a completely different set of
Speaker 1: distributors than retailers. There's different flows. Who controls it is different. Still,
Speaker 1: the people that keep us in cottonell, et cetera are
Speaker 1: working on it. The shelves for the good at home stuff,
Speaker 1: as quickly as they're emptied out, are regularly getting filled again. Eventually,
Speaker 1: and probably soon, suppliers will catch up to the demand,
Speaker 1: distribution will become a little more streamlined, and when it
Speaker 1: all comes together, the paper aisle will again be a
Speaker 1: safe place to go, so to speak. Today's episode was
Speaker 1: written by John Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang. For
Speaker 1: more on this and lots of other urgent topics, visit
Speaker 1: how Stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
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