MINTEL CATEGORY INSIGHTS
Global New Products Database
Household Paper Products Market Overview
The household paper market grew by 20.9% in 2020, only to drop by 12.3% in 2021 as supply came into sync with demand and consumers realized that shopping behavior in 2020 was more emotionally driven than need-based.
While Mintel projects that product usage and market growth will remain above pre-pandemic levels well into the recovery, it will take more than five years before category sales reach the $23.6 billion posted in 2020. Nearly half (45%) of female consumers say that they’re drying their hands more often with paper towels to reduce the spread of germs.
One-third of U.S. consumers say that they’re stocking up on toilet paper to prepare for future shortages.
Key Issues
One area of opportunity involves widening the grey area between paper towels and higher-margin wet wipes. Natural-fiber wipes highlight the competitive threat, because they use a similar fiber source and are targeted at the paper towel consumer who believes that polypropylene-containing wipes aren’t eco-friendly. According to Mintel, one-third of all consumers believe that paper towels are more eco-friendly than disposable cleaning wipes. This suggests that paper towel brands have an opportunity to reduce this threat and grow their profit margins by making paper towels more like wet wipes. As irreplaceable as the toilet paper segment seems now, the pandemic has accelerated consumers’ adoption of bidets. As this happens, consumers are learning that these products can save them money because they reduce toilet paper use by up to 80%, saving the average U.S. consumer up to $182 per year. If U.S. consumers adopt these devices at the same rate as Japanese consumers do, the market could see strong disruption. Toilet paper brands may have opportunities to control the disruption on their end by acquiring bidet brands.
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What Consumers Want, and Why While the pandemicinduced growth spurt has largely ended, brands have consumers’ attention like never before. Over the next year, consumers will be more receptive to innovations that save time, improve health, and make e-commerce greener, more efficient and more affordable. Mintel believes that due to the emotional imprinting of the pandemic, consumers will remain vigilant against COVID-19 and unknown viral threats still to come. Yet, as of January 2022, there are signs that COVID-19 may be transitioning from pandemic to endemic. As a result, many consumers will embrace a return to normalcy. Rampant inflation has made consumers more cost-conscious, and many consumers trialed store brands for the first time when their regular brands were out of stock. This has created an environment that will continue to tip consumer opinion toward the name-brand equivalency of private label.
PROGRESSIVE GROCER August 2022
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