卫生纸行业的“准时制”为何不管用了？
Jen Wieczner
2020-05-24
3月13日，周五。纸业巨头金佰利公司的高管们召开了最后一次紧急会议，然后匆匆地关闭办公楼。回家途中，北美家庭护理业务总裁阿里斯特•马斯托里德斯把车停在当地一家沃尔玛超市门口，打算利用疫情期间最后一次下班的机会，亲眼看看销售一线的紧急情况。马斯托里德斯负责监管Cottonelle和Scott等卫生纸品牌。但那天晚上，在这家位于威斯康星州尼纳市温纳贝戈湖畔的沃尔玛超市，他找不到自己的产品。“长长的贡多拉货架上没有一件卫生纸和纸巾，我这辈子从没有想过我竟然会见证这一幕。”他说，“这是一件非常令人不安的事情。”
事实上，那一周将因为“2020年卫生纸大恐慌”而被世人铭记。前一天，即3月12日，根据消费性包装品（CPG）调研机构NCSolutions提供的数据，卫生纸销售额较上年同日飙涨了734%，成为最畅销的日常杂货用品。随着购物者准备无限期地待在家里以躲避冠状病毒，他们先后把亚马逊，以及全美各地超市的卫生纸横扫一空。宅家期间，由于不再上班，也不会去餐厅或酒店，人们“方便”所需的卫生纸可能比平常高出40%。但他们买得更多：据市场资讯公司尼尔森统计，截至5月2日的9周内，卫生纸的销售额同比增长近71%——要不是人们买不到足够多的卫生纸的话，其涨幅还会更高。
起初，各路专家对短缺问题不以为然。《华尔街日报》在3月22日发表社论称：“有一种恐惧我们可以缓解，那就是不用担心美国的卫生纸快用完了。”但事实上，在美国大部分地区，人们的确买不到卫生纸。到3月23日，美国70%的杂货店（包括网上销售商）的卫生纸已经断货。“当所有人都超前采购时，就会造成短缺，感知就变成了现实。”贝恩咨询公司的全球供应链业务主管皮特•瓜拉亚说。
在新冠疫情爆发两个月后，这种白色的东西仍然异常稀缺。在亚马逊，卫生纸品牌Charmin的所有产品都无限期地显示“无货”。“由于卫生纸的供应量有限，”好市多超市已经暂停进货。“并不是说我们现在还有大批卫生纸藏在仓库，不愿拿出来销售。”沃尔玛的发言人丹•托波雷克说，“需求真的非常高，任何地方都很难有存货。”
宝洁旗下一家工厂里的Charmin 品牌卫生纸。图片来源：Courtesy of Procter &Gamble
如今，各大公司正在接受这样一个现实：像卫生纸这样普通的东西，其实代表着一种独特而复杂的供应链挑战。自相矛盾的是，消费性包装品行业近年来在效率方面取得的巨大进步——尤其是“准时制”生产和分销模式在全球范围内的普及——现在反倒阻塞了向客户提供卫生纸的管道。像消毒湿巾和发酵粉一样，卫生纸只是一件很普通的日常生活必需品，但这一次，它让美国企业界深刻地领会到了现代制造业和物流业的弱点。“我们一直非常努力地确保我们的系统尽可能高效地运转，这必然意味着我们现有的存货很难满足一周又一周的需求。”食品杂货行业组织FMI的首席执行官莱斯利•萨拉辛说。
在Charmin生产商宝洁公司和金佰利等纸业巨头那里，来自这些杂货店的大额订单像滚雪球般激增了好几个数量级。这意味着，尽管产量有所增加，但积压订单很可能会延续到夏天。与此同时，货架上总是空空如也，让人永远都觉得卫生纸确实短缺。因此，恐慌性购买仍在继续。宝洁的首席产品供应官胡利奥•内梅思说：“从网络安全攻击到地震再到火灾，我们做好了应对数千种不同事件的准备。”他的语气因其阿根廷口音而显得尤为真挚。“但我们没有为所有这些事情同时发生做准备，而这正是新冠疫情带给我们的惨痛现实。”
是的，卫生纸确实生长在树上——大部分是长在巴西的桉树上。美国和加拿大的树木需要生长几十年才能被砍伐，而散发着薄荷香味的巴西桉树只需要六七年就能长到100英尺（约合30米）高，比玉米长得还快。“这就是它们成本如此低的原因。”被广泛誉为“纸博士”的BMO资本市场公司的包装和森林产品分析师马克•怀尔德解释道。
对于像卫生纸这种利润率薄如蝉翼的产品来说，省下的每一分钱都是关键。根据汇丰银行的数据，随着卫生纸销量飙升，对于Charmin和Cottonelle等品牌所使用的原浆的需求也一路上扬，助推其价格在5月初上涨了30美元，达到每吨500美元左右。但上调卫生纸售价，必然会招致众怒。这就是为什么造纸业比其他行业更注重节约成本的原因。去年退休的宝洁全球产品供应官扬尼斯•斯卡弗洛斯表示：“我们必须尽可能完美地实现供需优化组合。”
至少在冠状病毒打破平衡之前是这样的。从历史上看，生产刚好满足需求的卫生纸是很容易做到的，因为需求几乎亘古不变。由于它的块头如此之大，没有人想用多余的卫生纸占据宝贵的居住空间。这些因素使得卫生纸成为“准时制”生产模式的经典范例。事实上，在过去十年，“准时制”已经成为消费性包装品行业的主导生产模式。
但这也意味着，疫情爆发后，当惊恐万分的购物者涌入卫生纸货架通道时，供应链中任何地方的存货最多只能卖两到三周。早在今年2月，宝洁就提高了佳洁士牙膏和玉兰油保湿霜等品牌的产量，以应对可能出现的需求上涨和工厂关闭潮。但“我们手头上的纸类产品订单从未增加过。”内梅思说。成本因素也起了作用：再开一条汰渍洗涤剂装配线只需要不到1,000万美元，而增加一台造纸机则需要大约3亿美元的投资。斯卡弗洛斯解释说。
根据市场研究公司Fastmarkets RISI的数据，卫生纸生产设备在3月的产能利用率高达99.8%，正常水平为92%。即便如此，美国当月的总产量仅增长了8%，达到70万吨。“这场疫情充分暴露了精益供应链管理的局限性。”贝恩咨询公司的瓜拉亚说。
没有哪家零售商像亚马逊这样把准时制模式推向极致。从一天甚至一小时交货期中获利，取决于对需求的准确预测。“如果亚马逊知道他们可以在周二下订单，周五就能在仓库拿到货，那就完全没有问题。”电子商务优化公司Ideoclick的战略规划副总裁、前亚马逊高管安德里亚•利说。
然而，卫生纸生产难题已经对亚马逊构成一项前所未有的挑战——一些订单迟迟数月无法到货。3月21日，亚马逊首席执行官杰夫•贝佐斯宣布将暂时中止允许部分商品进入其仓库的做法，“以优先储备和交付生活必需品。”但是，就卫生纸这种基本生活用品而言，哪怕是在疫情推动销量飙升的情况下，亚马逊也赚不了多少钱，如果有钱可赚的话。（首席财务官布赖恩•奥尔萨夫斯基在最近一次财报电话会议上透露称，亚马逊在许多低价商品上获得的额外收入“基本上跟成本持平”。该公司拒绝接受本文作者采访。）尽管卖卫生纸无利可图，但不卖也要付出客服成本。“亚马逊竟然连续8周无法提供Charmin卫生纸，这是极其可悲的。”咨询公司战略资源集团的董事总经理、宝洁前高管伯特•弗利金格这样说道。
具有讽刺意味的是，当人们被困在家里的时候，亚马逊正在放弃其他商品的潜在销售额，同时还在设法铺设其卫生纸管道。加拿大皇家银行资本市场的互联网分析师马克•马哈尼说：“我敢肯定，他们一定在踢自己的屁股。”
沃利•诺温斯基是旧金山一家电子商务公司的高管。他通过亚马逊订购卫生纸，每两周收一次货。不过，从2月下旬开始，尽管他订购的洗发水和肥皂还能准时到货，但亚马逊连续四次错过了卫生纸交货期。然后，在4月底，三包24卷装Quilted Northern卫生纸却在一周时间内陆续送达。但到这时候，这些卫生纸对他已经没有多大用处了。“我们去商店买了卫生纸。我不会突然需要两个月的用量。”他说。
诺温斯基的经历让我们得以窥探短缺问题是如何在幕后阻碍企业运营的。由于需求仍然超过生产能力，卫生纸不得不“按比例分配”。这意味着零售商只能得到其订购数量的一小部分——这种做法通常只适用于当季最热门的玩具或游戏。前亚马逊高管安德里亚•利说，由于亚马逊优先考虑订购用户，延迟发货意味着它没有获得足够多的卫生纸，甚至无法满足一些在疫情爆发很久以前就下的订单。面对类似的问题，好市多决定暂时不在网上销售卫生纸。负责财务的高级副总裁鲍勃•纳尔逊告诉《财富》杂志：“我们选择尽可能地维持仓库库存。”
没有一家企业希望在购买狂潮最终消退时，围困在堆积如山的卫生纸中。（高消费城市的消费者都会有这样的感受：“我们每个月要支付一平方英尺5美元的租金。我可不想把这些卫生纸都存在家中。”诺温斯基说。）“我们可以打造一条能够100%应对所有这些冲击的供应链。”瓜拉亚说，“但这就好比你能够造一辆固若金汤，让你碰到任何交通事故时都可以毫发无损的轿车，但你永远也不会想开它。”
不过，随着人们更多地在家工作，各大制造商正在适应需求持续增长的可能性。在3月那个星期五离开办公室后，金佰利公司总裁马斯托里德斯花了整个周末来决定停产哪一种卫生纸——将“库存单位”至少削减一半。该公司最终决定专注于生产6包装的Cottonelle“超大卷”卫生纸，而不是12包装。如此一来，工厂就不必频频关闭机器来更换原材料，从而最大程度地减少停机时间。在后疫情时代，一些种类恐怕再也不会重返生产线。“我认为，在这场疫情尘埃落定后，我们的产品类别将出现很大变化。”马斯托里德斯说。
在宝洁公司，历经两个月的破纪录生产，内梅思的团队正在实施从危机中吸取的教训。“我们正在以此为契机，全面推动供应链升级再造。”内梅思说。在想方设法适应超可预测的需求之后，宝洁正在为应对“一个明显更不稳定的环境”而重新设计其运营方式。这包括快速追踪新供应商的适应情况、增加分销网点，以及利用数据生成更早的需求冲击警告。保持社交距离的必要性也让宝洁意识到，该公司需要增加换岗班次，让员工尽可能分散地工作，从而更有效地为工厂配置员工。
就连办公室职员最近也开始去生产一线帮忙。毕竟，短缺问题让Charmin品牌的高管和普通消费者一样恼火。内梅思说：“我买卫生纸的渠道跟大家都是一样的。”当然，除非它卖光了。
顺应挑战
面对严峻的卫生纸短缺问题，多家《财富》美国500强企业正在想方设法地满足不断飙升的需求。
金佰利（第175位）
为了避免装配线中断，这家纸业巨头已经减少了卫生纸生产种类。金佰利正在优先生产6卷装Cottonelle卫生纸，而不是12卷装，这有助于将供应分散到更多的客户手中。
宝洁（第50位）
就连办公室职员最近也开始在工厂轮班，以推动产量达到创纪录的水平。此外，首席产品供应官胡利奥•内梅思表示，宝洁也更加依赖分析技术来预测需求波动，并给予其“更大的上下波动空间”。
好市多（第14位）
这家会员制仓储量贩店限制每位会员只能购买一大包卫生纸（这有助于防止顾客发生争执）。至少在6月之前，好市多将停止在网上销售卫生纸。
沃尔玛（第1位）
自3月以来，由于购物需求导致其供应链不堪重负，沃尔玛每天都在招聘5,000名新员工——目标是增加20万名员工——以保持货架库存，及时交付订货。此外，这家零售巨头还要求制造商绕过仓库，直接向旗下门店运送卫生纸，以避免在仓库之间转运所造成的物流减速。（财富中文网）
本文另一版本登载于《财富》杂志2020年6月/7月刊，标题为《疫情之下，卫生纸为何短缺？》。
译者：任文科
3月13日，周五。纸业巨头金佰利公司的高管们召开了最后一次紧急会议，然后匆匆地关闭办公楼。回家途中，北美家庭护理业务总裁阿里斯特•马斯托里德斯把车停在当地一家沃尔玛超市门口，打算利用疫情期间最后一次下班的机会，亲眼看看销售一线的紧急情况。马斯托里德斯负责监管Cottonelle和Scott等卫生纸品牌。但那天晚上，在这家位于威斯康星州尼纳市温纳贝戈湖畔的沃尔玛超市，他找不到自己的产品。“长长的贡多拉货架上没有一件卫生纸和纸巾，我这辈子从没有想过我竟然会见证这一幕。”他说，“这是一件非常令人不安的事情。”
事实上，那一周将因为“2020年卫生纸大恐慌”而被世人铭记。前一天，即3月12日，根据消费性包装品（CPG）调研机构NCSolutions提供的数据，卫生纸销售额较上年同日飙涨了734%，成为最畅销的日常杂货用品。随着购物者准备无限期地待在家里以躲避冠状病毒，他们先后把亚马逊，以及全美各地超市的卫生纸横扫一空。宅家期间，由于不再上班，也不会去餐厅或酒店，人们“方便”所需的卫生纸可能比平常高出40%。但他们买得更多：据市场资讯公司尼尔森统计，截至5月2日的9周内，卫生纸的销售额同比增长近71%——要不是人们买不到足够多的卫生纸的话，其涨幅还会更高。
起初，各路专家对短缺问题不以为然。《华尔街日报》在3月22日发表社论称：“有一种恐惧我们可以缓解，那就是不用担心美国的卫生纸快用完了。”但事实上，在美国大部分地区，人们的确买不到卫生纸。到3月23日，美国70%的杂货店（包括网上销售商）的卫生纸已经断货。“当所有人都超前采购时，就会造成短缺，感知就变成了现实。”贝恩咨询公司的全球供应链业务主管皮特•瓜拉亚说。
在新冠疫情爆发两个月后，这种白色的东西仍然异常稀缺。在亚马逊，卫生纸品牌Charmin的所有产品都无限期地显示“无货”。“由于卫生纸的供应量有限，”好市多超市已经暂停进货。“并不是说我们现在还有大批卫生纸藏在仓库，不愿拿出来销售。”沃尔玛的发言人丹•托波雷克说，“需求真的非常高，任何地方都很难有存货。”
如今，各大公司正在接受这样一个现实：像卫生纸这样普通的东西，其实代表着一种独特而复杂的供应链挑战。自相矛盾的是，消费性包装品行业近年来在效率方面取得的巨大进步——尤其是“准时制”生产和分销模式在全球范围内的普及——现在反倒阻塞了向客户提供卫生纸的管道。像消毒湿巾和发酵粉一样，卫生纸只是一件很普通的日常生活必需品，但这一次，它让美国企业界深刻地领会到了现代制造业和物流业的弱点。“我们一直非常努力地确保我们的系统尽可能高效地运转，这必然意味着我们现有的存货很难满足一周又一周的需求。”食品杂货行业组织FMI的首席执行官莱斯利•萨拉辛说。
在Charmin生产商宝洁公司和金佰利等纸业巨头那里，来自这些杂货店的大额订单像滚雪球般激增了好几个数量级。这意味着，尽管产量有所增加，但积压订单很可能会延续到夏天。与此同时，货架上总是空空如也，让人永远都觉得卫生纸确实短缺。因此，恐慌性购买仍在继续。宝洁的首席产品供应官胡利奥•内梅思说：“从网络安全攻击到地震再到火灾，我们做好了应对数千种不同事件的准备。”他的语气因其阿根廷口音而显得尤为真挚。“但我们没有为所有这些事情同时发生做准备，而这正是新冠疫情带给我们的惨痛现实。”
是的，卫生纸确实生长在树上——大部分是长在巴西的桉树上。美国和加拿大的树木需要生长几十年才能被砍伐，而散发着薄荷香味的巴西桉树只需要六七年就能长到100英尺（约合30米）高，比玉米长得还快。“这就是它们成本如此低的原因。”被广泛誉为“纸博士”的BMO资本市场公司的包装和森林产品分析师马克•怀尔德解释道。
对于像卫生纸这种利润率薄如蝉翼的产品来说，省下的每一分钱都是关键。根据汇丰银行的数据，随着卫生纸销量飙升，对于Charmin和Cottonelle等品牌所使用的原浆的需求也一路上扬，助推其价格在5月初上涨了30美元，达到每吨500美元左右。但上调卫生纸售价，必然会招致众怒。这就是为什么造纸业比其他行业更注重节约成本的原因。去年退休的宝洁全球产品供应官扬尼斯•斯卡弗洛斯表示：“我们必须尽可能完美地实现供需优化组合。”
至少在冠状病毒打破平衡之前是这样的。从历史上看，生产刚好满足需求的卫生纸是很容易做到的，因为需求几乎亘古不变。由于它的块头如此之大，没有人想用多余的卫生纸占据宝贵的居住空间。这些因素使得卫生纸成为“准时制”生产模式的经典范例。事实上，在过去十年，“准时制”已经成为消费性包装品行业的主导生产模式。
但这也意味着，疫情爆发后，当惊恐万分的购物者涌入卫生纸货架通道时，供应链中任何地方的存货最多只能卖两到三周。早在今年2月，宝洁就提高了佳洁士牙膏和玉兰油保湿霜等品牌的产量，以应对可能出现的需求上涨和工厂关闭潮。但“我们手头上的纸类产品订单从未增加过。”内梅思说。成本因素也起了作用：再开一条汰渍洗涤剂装配线只需要不到1,000万美元，而增加一台造纸机则需要大约3亿美元的投资。斯卡弗洛斯解释说。
根据市场研究公司Fastmarkets RISI的数据，卫生纸生产设备在3月的产能利用率高达99.8%，正常水平为92%。即便如此，美国当月的总产量仅增长了8%，达到70万吨。“这场疫情充分暴露了精益供应链管理的局限性。”贝恩咨询公司的瓜拉亚说。
没有哪家零售商像亚马逊这样把准时制模式推向极致。从一天甚至一小时交货期中获利，取决于对需求的准确预测。“如果亚马逊知道他们可以在周二下订单，周五就能在仓库拿到货，那就完全没有问题。”电子商务优化公司Ideoclick的战略规划副总裁、前亚马逊高管安德里亚•利说。
然而，卫生纸生产难题已经对亚马逊构成一项前所未有的挑战——一些订单迟迟数月无法到货。3月21日，亚马逊首席执行官杰夫•贝佐斯宣布将暂时中止允许部分商品进入其仓库的做法，“以优先储备和交付生活必需品。”但是，就卫生纸这种基本生活用品而言，哪怕是在疫情推动销量飙升的情况下，亚马逊也赚不了多少钱，如果有钱可赚的话。（首席财务官布赖恩•奥尔萨夫斯基在最近一次财报电话会议上透露称，亚马逊在许多低价商品上获得的额外收入“基本上跟成本持平”。该公司拒绝接受本文作者采访。）尽管卖卫生纸无利可图，但不卖也要付出客服成本。“亚马逊竟然连续8周无法提供Charmin卫生纸，这是极其可悲的。”咨询公司战略资源集团的董事总经理、宝洁前高管伯特•弗利金格这样说道。
具有讽刺意味的是，当人们被困在家里的时候，亚马逊正在放弃其他商品的潜在销售额，同时还在设法铺设其卫生纸管道。加拿大皇家银行资本市场的互联网分析师马克•马哈尼说：“我敢肯定，他们一定在踢自己的屁股。”
沃利•诺温斯基是旧金山一家电子商务公司的高管。他通过亚马逊订购卫生纸，每两周收一次货。不过，从2月下旬开始，尽管他订购的洗发水和肥皂还能准时到货，但亚马逊连续四次错过了卫生纸交货期。然后，在4月底，三包24卷装Quilted Northern卫生纸却在一周时间内陆续送达。但到这时候，这些卫生纸对他已经没有多大用处了。“我们去商店买了卫生纸。我不会突然需要两个月的用量。”他说。
诺温斯基的经历让我们得以窥探短缺问题是如何在幕后阻碍企业运营的。由于需求仍然超过生产能力，卫生纸不得不“按比例分配”。这意味着零售商只能得到其订购数量的一小部分——这种做法通常只适用于当季最热门的玩具或游戏。前亚马逊高管安德里亚•利说，由于亚马逊优先考虑订购用户，延迟发货意味着它没有获得足够多的卫生纸，甚至无法满足一些在疫情爆发很久以前就下的订单。面对类似的问题，好市多决定暂时不在网上销售卫生纸。负责财务的高级副总裁鲍勃•纳尔逊告诉《财富》杂志：“我们选择尽可能地维持仓库库存。”
没有一家企业希望在购买狂潮最终消退时，围困在堆积如山的卫生纸中。（高消费城市的消费者都会有这样的感受：“我们每个月要支付一平方英尺5美元的租金。我可不想把这些卫生纸都存在家中。”诺温斯基说。）“我们可以打造一条能够100%应对所有这些冲击的供应链。”瓜拉亚说，“但这就好比你能够造一辆固若金汤，让你碰到任何交通事故时都可以毫发无损的轿车，但你永远也不会想开它。”
不过，随着人们更多地在家工作，各大制造商正在适应需求持续增长的可能性。在3月那个星期五离开办公室后，金佰利公司总裁马斯托里德斯花了整个周末来决定停产哪一种卫生纸——将“库存单位”至少削减一半。该公司最终决定专注于生产6包装的Cottonelle“超大卷”卫生纸，而不是12包装。如此一来，工厂就不必频频关闭机器来更换原材料，从而最大程度地减少停机时间。在后疫情时代，一些种类恐怕再也不会重返生产线。“我认为，在这场疫情尘埃落定后，我们的产品类别将出现很大变化。”马斯托里德斯说。
在宝洁公司，历经两个月的破纪录生产，内梅思的团队正在实施从危机中吸取的教训。“我们正在以此为契机，全面推动供应链升级再造。”内梅思说。在想方设法适应超可预测的需求之后，宝洁正在为应对“一个明显更不稳定的环境”而重新设计其运营方式。这包括快速追踪新供应商的适应情况、增加分销网点，以及利用数据生成更早的需求冲击警告。保持社交距离的必要性也让宝洁意识到，该公司需要增加换岗班次，让员工尽可能分散地工作，从而更有效地为工厂配置员工。
就连办公室职员最近也开始去生产一线帮忙。毕竟，短缺问题让Charmin品牌的高管和普通消费者一样恼火。内梅思说：“我买卫生纸的渠道跟大家都是一样的。”当然，除非它卖光了。
顺应挑战
面对严峻的卫生纸短缺问题，多家《财富》美国500强企业正在想方设法地满足不断飙升的需求。
金佰利（第175位）
为了避免装配线中断，这家纸业巨头已经减少了卫生纸生产种类。金佰利正在优先生产6卷装Cottonelle卫生纸，而不是12卷装，这有助于将供应分散到更多的客户手中。
宝洁（第50位）
就连办公室职员最近也开始在工厂轮班，以推动产量达到创纪录的水平。此外，首席产品供应官胡利奥•内梅思表示，宝洁也更加依赖分析技术来预测需求波动，并给予其“更大的上下波动空间”。
好市多（第14位）
这家会员制仓储量贩店限制每位会员只能购买一大包卫生纸（这有助于防止顾客发生争执）。至少在6月之前，好市多将停止在网上销售卫生纸。
沃尔玛（第1位）
自3月以来，由于购物需求导致其供应链不堪重负，沃尔玛每天都在招聘5,000名新员工——目标是增加20万名员工——以保持货架库存，及时交付订货。此外，这家零售巨头还要求制造商绕过仓库，直接向旗下门店运送卫生纸，以避免在仓库之间转运所造成的物流减速。（财富中文网）
本文另一版本登载于《财富》杂志2020年6月/7月刊，标题为《疫情之下，卫生纸为何短缺？》。
译者：任文科
BEFORE EXECUTIVES at paper-goods giant Kimberly-Clark rushed to shut their offices on Friday the 13th of March, they convened for one last emergency meeting. Commuting home that final time, Arist Mastorides, president of family care for North America, stopped at his local Walmart, on the edge of Lake Winnebago in Neenah, Wis., to see the emergency firsthand. Mastorides oversees toilet paper brands like Cottonelle and Scott, but that evening he could find none of his own products. “A long gondola shelf that’s completely empty of bathroom and facial tissue, I never in my life thought I would ever see that,” he says. “That’s a very unsettling thing.”
Indeed, that week will be remembered for the Great Toilet Paper Panic of 2020. The previous day, March 12, TP sales had ballooned 734% compared with the same day the previous year, becoming the top-selling product at grocery stores by dollars spent, according to NCSolutions, which tracks consumer packaged goods (CPG). As shoppers prepared to hunker down at home indefinitely to avoid the coronavirus, they wiped Amazon, then supermarkets across America, clean of the bathroom basic. People might need as much as 40% more toilet paper at home for “occasions” (as the industry calls them) that would otherwise happen at workplaces, restaurants, or hotels. But they bought far more: Sales were up nearly 71% year over year in the nine weeks through May 2, according to Nielsen. They would have risen even higher—except that people can’t find enough toilet paper to buy.
At first, experts waved off concerns about shortages. A Wall Street Journal editorial on March 22 declared, “There is one fear we can alleviate: the idea that America is running out of toilet paper.” But much of America did, in fact, run out. By March 23, toilet paper was out of stock at 70% of U.S. grocery stores (including online sellers). “When everybody forward-buys, then you do create a shortage. Perception becomes reality,” says Pete Guarraia, who heads consultancy Bain’s global supply-chain practice.
Some two months into the pandemic, the white stuff remains scarce. All types of Charmin are indefinitely “unavailable” on Amazon.com; Costco has suspended TP shipping “due to limited supply.” “It’s not like there’s troves of it sitting in warehouses that we didn’t get to stores,” says Dan Toporek, a spokesperson for Walmart. “There’s just truly such high demand it’s hard to have in stock anywhere.”
Major companies are now absorbing the reality that something as mundane as toilet paper represents a uniquely complex supply-chain challenge. Paradoxically, the great strides the CPG industry has made in efficiency in recent years—especially the near-global adoption of “just in time” manufacturing and distribution—have now clogged the pipes that get TP to customers. And toilet paper is merely one of the essential items, from disinfectant wipes to baking yeast, teaching business a hard lesson about weaknesses of modern manufacturing and logistics. “The fact that we’ve been working so hard to try to make sure our systems run as efficiently as they possibly can has necessarily meant that we didn’t have weeks and weeks of supplies sitting around,” says Leslie Sarasin, CEO of FMI, a trade group that represents the grocery industry.
Big purchases from those groceries have snowballed—by orders of magnitude—at manufacturers like Procter & Gamble, maker of Charmin, and Kimberly-Clark. That means that even as production has increased, back orders are likely to last well into the summer. Persistently bare shelves, meanwhile, perpetuate the perception that there is a true shortage; thus, the panic buying continues. “We are prepared for thousands of different events, from cybersecurity attacks to earthquakes to fire,” says Julio Nemeth, P&G’s chief product supply officer, whose earnest voice is accented by his native Argentina. “But we were not prepared for all of those happening at the same time, which is what the pandemic brought to us.”
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AS IT HAPPENS, toilet paper really does grow on trees—eucalyptus trees, mostly, in Brazil. Whereas in the U.S. and Canada trees take decades before they can be cut down, the sweetly mint-scented Brazilian trees reach 100 feet into the sky in just six or seven years, growing faster than corn. “That’s what makes them so low cost,” says Mark Wilde, a packaging and forest products analyst at BMO Capital Markets who is widely known as Dr. Paper.
For a product like toilet paper with single-ply margins, every penny saved is key. And as sales of bog rolls have surged, demand for the virgin pulp used in Charmin and Cottonelle has also ticked up, sending prices of the commodity $30 higher in early May, to around $500 a ton, according to HSBC. But try charging more for toilet paper, and you’ll incur consumer outrage. That’s why the paper industry is more cost-obsessed than perhaps any other. “It’s as absolutely ideally optimized, as perfectly as it can be, between the supply and the demand,” says Yannis Skoufalos, who retired last year as P&G’s global product supply officer.
At least that was the case until the coronavirus upset the balance. Historically, it has been easy to produce just the right amount of TP because demand is so boringly consistent. And because of its bulk, no one wants extra rolls taking up valuable space. Those factors have made toilet paper the quintessential candidate for just-in-time manufacturing, the methodology that has come to dominate the CPG industry in the past decade.
But it also meant that when pandemic shoppers descended on paper aisles, there was no more than two or three weeks’ worth to sell, anywhere in the supply chain. As early as February, preparing for potentially greater demand and feared plant closures, P&G boosted production of brands like Crest toothpaste and Olay moisturizer. But “we never had more on hand in the paper category,” says Nemeth. Cost considerations played a role: Whereas you could open up another assembly line to fill bottles of Tide detergent for under $10 million, an additional paper machine would require an investment of roughly $300 million, explains Skoufalos.
Toilet paper machines ran at 99.8% of capacity in March, according to Fastmarkets RISI, up from their normal 92%. Even so, overall U.S. production increased only 8%, to some 700,000 tons for the month. “This pandemic has revealed the limits of lean supply-chain management,” says Bain’s Guarraia.
No retailer has taken the just-in-time model to more of an extreme than Amazon. Making a profit on one-day and even one-hour delivery depends on accurately forecasting demand. “If Amazon knows they can order on Tuesday and get it literally in their warehouses by Friday, it’s totally fine,” says Andrea Leigh, a former Amazon executive, now VP of strategy and insights at Ideoclick, an e-commerce optimization company.
The toilet paper production conundrum, however, has become an unprecedented challenge for Amazon, leaving it months behind on orders. Amazon even temporarily stopped allowing some goods into its warehouses altogether, “to prioritize stocking and delivering essential items like household staples,” CEO Jeff Bezos announced on March 21. But on basics like toilet paper, Amazon earns little profit, if any, even at pandemic-driven higher volumes, says Leigh. (Amazon’s additional revenue on many low-price items “is basically coming at cost,” CFO Brian Olsavsky said on a recent earnings call. Amazon declined to comment for this story.) And unprofitable as it is to sell, not selling toilet paper comes with a customer-service cost. “The fact that Amazon cannot deliver Charmin for over eight weeks in a row shows how pathetic it is,” says Burt Flickinger, managing director of the consultancy Strategic Resource Group, and a former P&G executive.
The irony is that with people stuck at home, Amazon is flushing away potential sales of other items while it plumbs its TP pipeline. Says Mark Mahaney, Internet analyst at RBC Capital Markets, “I’m sure they must be kicking themselves in the butt.”
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WALLY NOWINSKI, a San Francisco-based e-commerce executive, subscribes to toilet paper via Amazon, receiving biweekly deliveries. But beginning in late February, while his subscriptions to shampoo and soap kept arriving on time, Amazon missed four straight TP shipments. Then, at the end of April, three 24-roll packs of Quilted Northern showed up in the span of a week. Not that it did him much good by then. “We went out to the store and bought toilet paper. I don’t suddenly need, like, two months’ worth,” he says.
Nowinski’s experience provides a glimpse into how the shortage is constipating companies behind the scenes. Because demand still exceeds production capacity, TP is “on allocation,” meaning retailers are getting only a fraction of the amounts they’ve ordered—a measure generally applied only to the season’s hottest toys or games. Since Amazon prioritizes subscriptions, says Leigh, delayed shipments suggest it hasn’t gotten enough TP to fulfill even orders placed long before the pandemic. Facing a similar problem, Costco has decided not to sell TP online for the time being. “We have chosen to keep our warehouses in stock as best as we can,” Bob Nelson, Costco’s senior vice president of finance, tells Fortune.
What no business wants is to be stuck with mounds of rolls when buying finally slows. (Consumers in pricey cities can relate. Says Nowinski, “We pay $5 a square foot a month in rent—I don’t want to be storing all this toilet paper.”) “You can build supply chains that are 100% resilient to all shocks,” Guarraia says. “But the analogy I use is you can build a car where if you have an accident you would never be hurt, but you would never want to drive that car.”
Still, manufacturers are adapting to the likelihood of prolonged higher demand as people work more from home. After leaving the office that March Friday, Kimberly-Clark’s Mastorides spent the weekend deciding which kinds of TP to stop producing—cutting “SKUs” by at least half. The company has focused on six-packs of Cottonelle “mega rolls” versus 12-packs; that keeps plants from having to stop the machines as often to switch out materials, minimizing downtime. Some variants likely won’t return post-pandemic. “I think we’ll have a very different assortment as we exit this,” Mastorides says.
Over at P&G, after two months of record-breaking production, Nemeth’s team is implementing lessons learned from the crisis. “We are turning those into essentially a reengineering of our supply chain,” Nemeth says. Having adapted its operations for ultra-predictable demand, P&G is now redesigning them for “a significantly more volatile environment.” That includes fast-tracking onboarding for new suppliers, adding distribution sites, and using data to generate earlier demand-shock warnings. The necessities of social distancing have also helped P&G realize it can staff plants more efficiently, by spreading workers across more shifts.
Even desk workers have lately pitched in on factory floors. After all, shortages have chafed Charmin executives as much as they have the rest of us. “I buy my toilet paper where anybody buys it,” says Nemeth. Unless, of course, it’s sold out.
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ROLLING WITH THE TP PUNCHES
Fortune 500 companies grappling with toilet paper shortages are plunging ahead to keep up with surging demand.
KIMBERLY-CLARK (NO. 175)
Look for more “mega” than “double” rolls of top brand Cottonelle: Manufacturer Kimberly-Clark has cut the number of TP variations it makes to avoid pausing its assembly lines. It’s prioritizing six-roll packs over 12-packs, which helps spread the supply among more customers.
PROCTER & GAMBLE (NO. 50)
Even office workers have lately taken shifts on the factory floors to push production to record highs. The company is also relying more heavily on analytics to foresee demand fluctuations and give it “more flex up and down,” says P&G’s Julio Nemeth.
COSTCO (NO. 14)
The wholesale-quantity grocery seller has limited purchases to a single jumbo pack of toilet paper per member (helping prevent tussles between shoppers). Costco has also stopped selling TP online until at least June.
WALMART (NO. 1)
Since March, Walmart has been hiring 5,000 new workers a day—with the aim of adding 200,000 in total—to help keep shelves stocked and orders filled as shopper demand strains its supply chain. It’s also having manufacturers ship toilet paper directly to its stores, bypassing warehouses and slowdowns from trucking between them.
A version of this article appears in the June/July 2020 issue of Fortune with the headline “The case of the missing toilet paper.”
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