Tissue World Magazine | Operations Report
SUPPLY CHAIN INTEGRATION THE KEY AS DIVERSE LATIN AMERICAN MARKET ENTERS DEFINING ERA Following the start-up of a TAD tissue machine at the company’s Sahagún facility in Mexico in 2020, Essity continues to target premium products in its main global growth market. TWM Senior Editor Helen Morris speaks to Roberto Caballero, VP Supply Chain for LatAm, Essity.
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he next few years will be a defining period for the Latin American (LatAm) tissue market. Tissue projects in the region that have started up in 2023 or will be in development during 2024 and 2025 include three projects in Mexico, one in Argentina, one in Colombia, El Salvador, and Guatemala, and seven tissue projects in Brazil. Whether the LatAm tissue market will enter a state of overcapacity in the next few years – or just extra capacity – remains to be seen. For global tissue giant Essity, the region remains a “key growth area”, according to Roberto Caballero, Vice President Supply Chain for LatAm. From his base in Mexico City, Caballero, who has over 30 years of experience as a manufacturing, supply chain, and FMCG industry executive, discusses how Essity has positioned itself as “the fastest growing and value creating hygiene company” in the region. The company has confirmed its commitment to growth in the region, which it describes as an “emerging market”, and said that future development will take the shape of “innovation, more premium products, leading brands, digitalisation, with increased e-commerce sales and a Direct-to-Consumer business model.”
Its commitment has been underpinned in the past few years by two substantial investments. In 2019, Essity Mexico started-up a Toscotec-supplied TADVISION machine equipped with a Steel Yankee Dryer at its tissue mill in Ciudad Sahagún, Hidalgo. It was Essity Mexico’s first AD machine, and designed for “extra-premium product quality”, according to Caballero. In 2021, the company completed the acquisition of Productos Familia, finalising the acquisition of 45.8% of the shares in the Colombian hygiene company so that it now owns 95.8% of the business. At the time, Essity President and Chief Executive Magnus Groth said the move meant that Essity could “build an even stronger platform in Latin America to further increase growth, profitabilit , and efficienc , as well as accelerating the digital transformation.” Now in 2024, Essity is the third largest player across Latin America with its Regio and Familia brands and market position, behind Brazil’s Suzano and Chile’s Softys. With the substantial capacity push in the next few years, what will Essity’s strategy be in one of the company’s most dynamic growth regions? “In LatAm, we are organised in a way that the supply chain is the same that we have for Personal Care,” he says. “I am responsible for these sites across the region, and so out of the 10,000 people that
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