The toilet paper factories around the world are not currently burning down, as W. Shih, professor from Harvard Business School, reminds us in a recent news piece about the toilet paper pipeline.

The demand for toilet paper is often flat because there is never any 'hot season' for toilet paper, where people are buying more than they usually would. That is until recently, with pictures of empty shelves everywhere it has some people wondering is the world running out of toilet paper?

Since the demand for toilet paper is usually steady, the factories creating that toilet paper are regularly working around the clock to produce a certain amount according to that steady demand. So when there is a rapid increase in demand for the product, it will obviously upset the availability of products.

The factories making the toilet paper are designed to operate with little room for increase or decrease to the product demand.

How Is It All Getting Made?

• trees are cut down in areas like the Canada, the United States, and Russia
• those trees are then ground into chips
• the chips get processed into blocks of pulp
• the blocks of pulp are shipped to factories that are going to eventually turn it into the final toilet paper product

Various industry experts have insisted that toilet paper supplies, and other basic goods, are not running low, there is plenty left, it just needs to make its way to the shelves.

“We are working diligently to ensure we can continue to serve customers and meet demand in the middle of a highly dynamic situation. We continue to manufacture and ship Charmin to our retailers.” - Procter & Gamble

Many grocery stores have been re-stocking their toilet paper at least once or twice per day and it is still being completely wiped out from the shelves. It's obviously an incredibly busy time for the industry.

The sudden spike in demand has also prompted product shortages for smaller toilet paper producers as well, such as straight to consumer brands and organic more niche toilet paper options. One organic tissue company known as Peach claims that they've seen sales go up more than 250 percent in the last 2 weeks.

Entrepreneurs are working around the clock to restock the stores for us with our basic goods as quickly as possible. We should be thankful that it is them, and not bureaucrats, working on the task to try and solve this problem in the market right now.

Pics:
pic1