Tissue: is softness the central concern? Everybody likes a soft touch--especially from their issue.

The tissue market is going soft ... soft and fluffy, that is. For tissue makers morn than for producers of any other paper grade, the biggest profits lie in branded consumer products; and softness is a characteristic that even the least savvy consumer understands. According to Jaakko Poyry Consulting, in toilet tissue, premium grades (where softness is a major selling point) account For 55% of the North American market; in some European countries (the UK, France and Germany) that share is as high as 60%. Owners of the leading brands spend as much as US$ 20-35 million annually--per brand--on marketing to support their retail products.

"Soft and bulky products are gradually gaining bigger market shares in major market areas," reported a Jaakko Poyry representative. "The main trend in tissue paper quality development is to produce paper with higher softness, bulk and absorbency; paper making technology is intensively being developed to fulfill these higher quality requirements by the market."

SOFT SELL

In North America, tissue is a US$10 billion market; Europe's market is about US$ 6.7 billion. Tissue is divided into two main businesses: consumer products and "away-from-home" or commercial products. In both sectors, the highly personal nature of the products mean that consumers pay much closer attention to sheet properties than for other types of paper--even those they use every day, like newsprint or copier paper.

In developed countries, tissue markets are mature but still growing with the population. Emerging markets show the highest growth potential. "World demand for tissues and towels is close to 20 million metric tons p.a., accounting for 6% of world paper and board consumption," reported marketing consultant Richard Cockram, NLK Associates, in the Market Pulp Association's Pulp World publication. He expects demand to grow at 4 percent annually worldwide, "with close to 3% growth in Europe and North America, and considerably faster growth in developing countries, particularly in Asia."

As living standards increase in those areas, higher-quality products become more affordable, available and--significantly--more familiar to a wider population, through increased exposure to marketing. For high-margin products like bathroom tissue, facial tissue and paper towels, softness is easy to identify, even for new consumers, and therefore easy to sell.

"Softness is indeed an important item in developed markets," commented a representative of Andritz, a German-based paper machinery manufacturer. "It is not the only central concern; the necessary strength or the absorbency are natural product properties today, which are not discussed or advertised anymore (not totally true for absorbency). However, softness and handfeel are characteristics which are specially advertised and properties of luxury."

PART OF THE PROCESS

Papermakers have plenty of "softness solutions" available to them. The growing popularity of the highly-touted through-air-drying (TAD) process is due largely to the superior softness it imparts.

"Contrary to conventional tissue production with drying on Yankee cylinders, a combination of through-air drying and Yankee drying--or in some cases, through-air drying only--is used for soft tissue," reported Alfred Watzl of German machinery manufacturer Fleissner GmbH & Co. "Yet, the difference between these two technologies not only extends to the drying section, but covers practically all components of a complete installation." This makes TAD installation expensive; but savings can be realized with decreased fiber use (see box at right.)

TAD is not the only way to achieve greater softness. Mechanical processes that can benefit end product softness include longer nip pressing, specialized drying hoods, and careful attention to roll tension at the reel end, to preserve bulk. Crepe is extremely important to softness, and creping chemistries can be applied specifically to enhance handfeel and softness, while maintaining sheet strength.

At the Paper Summit conference held last March in Atlanta, participants in the Tissue Roundtable found softness issues a frequent topic in discussions of blade life, creping methods, chemical strategies and improved runnability. Once participant summed it up by commenting that "some qualities of softness are counter to other goals: for ex-ample, it's cheaper to remove water in pressing, but that's contrary to softness."

Added another participant, "any time you add softness, you take a hit in tensile strength. Most are willing to take the hit, because the market demands softness. Softness also hits runnability; you end up spending extra money on additives and chemicals." Other participants pointed to joint efforts currently, underway between chemical suppliers and fabric makers to address these tradeoffs with solutions geared specifically toward increasing softness without sacrificing runnability or other sheet properties like wet strength or absorbency--still important to consumers, particularly in towel grades.

The final challenge is the secrecy that has always shrouded the highly competitive tissue arena-particularly when it comes to consumer products and their attributes. That is what makes softness testing "a mine field," said industry consultant Jim Abbott, in his Paper Summit presentation on development of ISO testing standards for tissue properties, adding that "almost all tissue makers have proprietary methods for softness testing that they won't reveal." Other properties will continue to be important to tissue makers, but as long as softness remains a "touchpoint" for its growing population of end users, it will remain a priority in this consumer-driven industry sector.

IN THIS ARTICLE YOU WILL LEARN:

* How experts expect the tissue market to grow.

* Why softness is increasingly important.

* How expanding adoption of TAD is affecting tissue quality.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

* To purchase technical papers from the 2002 Paper Summit, visit www.tappi.org

* The Market Pulp Association website: www.marketpulp.pppc.org

RELATED ARTICLE: Pulp friction.

The tissue sector has a comparatively low level of financial integration-tissue mills get 80% of their market pulp from non-affiliated pulp producers, according to Richard Cockram of NLK Associates. "This compares to 70% in the freesheet sector and only 60% in groundwood papers. The tissue sector is also a target for market DIP mills in Europe and the U.S., though many tissue producers prefer to install their own flotation lines," he wrote in the Market Pulp Association's Pulp World magazine.

In fact, two of the biggest tissue giants--Procter & Gamble and Kimberly-Clark--have almost completely exited the pulp business. Even Georgia-Pacific, the world's 8th largest pulp producer, has been taking actions to move out of pulp (notably the March, 2001 closure of its Bellingham, Washington pulp mill, which had produced approximately 220,000 tons of pulp annually; and the August, 2001 sale of four integrated mills to Domtar.) But if a quality product depends on quality materials--and the highly competitive markets for consumer tissue products are definitely skewing toward quality--why are the major players getting out of the pulp game?

"I think this indicates a belief that pulp is a plentiful, truly commodity input. They are all smart folks, so one could also read from this that they believe that pulp will stay abundant for the foreseeable future-say, five to ten years," said Jim Thompson of Tale Analytic International Inc., an Atlanta-based consultancy firm that has worked extensively within the tissue sector.

"Think about it," he continued. "If one doesn't have pulp mills and their associated huge investments to amortize, then one can be much more flexible in manufacturing tissue. Tissue machines, and their concomitant converting plants, probably represent the least investment per dollar of income that exists in the paper and paperboard industry. Plus, if markets turn soft, they can be run on staggered schedules, such as 10 days out of every 14, for instance. And guess what happens now when you are down? You are not consuming pulp and, in fact, you are assisting the pulp market in becoming soft because of your lessening of demand."

Price is important, as tissue is considered less sensitive to pulp specifications than other grades; but quality is still an important consideration. European tissue producer SCA plans to continue its presence as a major pulp producer, according to Anders Luthbom, head of SCA's business intelligence. "There is a strategic value in insuring a secure supply of pulp," he stated in an SCA investor report. "The market is requiring many more fiber qualities today than existed even 10 years ago. This means that there are few potential suppliers, which also increases pulp's strategic value for a company like SCA,"

Since so much of the fiber used in tissue making comes from sources outside the manufacturing company, quality control is important. At Paper Summit 2002 in Atlanta, Georgia, industry consultant Alan F. Button of Buttonwood Consulting offered tips on testing pulp for making tissue and towel grades. "Pulp for towel is not that much different from tissue," he said, "but more refining is typically done to pulp for towel."

According to Button, testing frameworks should encompass the following concerns:

* Fiber morphology (including length, coarseness, curl and fines)

* Fiber strength

* Handsheet properties (including tensile breaking length, bulk, scattering coefficient and stretch)

* Pulp drainage properties (including freeness and, especially for towel, refining energy)

* Pulp appearance (brightness, dirt)

* Pulp chemical properties (cationic demands)

Most pulps can be rated comprehensively with only ten separate measurements, suggested Button. The challenge is that too much variability in the testing methods yields data that are not comparable enough to offer solid background for good fiber decisions, He suggests that mills take the following steps for "an efficient, effective approach to evaluating pulp":

1. Identify what you want

2. Measure fundamental properties directly

3. Select standardized tests

4. Use one lab, and stable processes

5. Test pulps currently used

6. Rank results from the most to the least important attribute, and evaluate these in terms of your goals and your mill's own system requirements.

RELATED ARTICLE: through air drying: the future?

First introduced in North America during the 1970s, Through-Air-Drying (TAD) technology offers tissue makers a way to improve softness, bulk and water absorption of tissue and towel grades. According to paperloop.com, two-thirds of new North American tissue production between 1996 and 1999 installed TAD; major players in Europe are joining the trend with new TAD installations as well, particularly in France and the UK, where consumer quality demands are the highest. Since 2000, Kimberly-Clark has been developing its proprietary uncreped through air drying (UCTAD) process, and credits UCTAD for sales gains in its Cottonelle bathroom tissue and Scott paper towel brands.

The quality gains achieved with TAD have been the driving force behind the new super-premium grade consumer products being introduced in both Europe and North America. Yet those quality improvements have a price. High capital investment costs have made TAD a reality for the top producers only. Energy costs are another concern; the energy consumption of a TAD machine is approximately twice as high as that of a conventional machine. The machine's larger footprint--generally requiring more space, both in cross-direction and machine-direction, is a further challenge.

TAD proponents counter that the investments is more than offset by the potentially lower fiber cost--not only can TAD coax better performance from lower-quality pulp, but increased bulk means that the finished product requires fewer plies. According to Alfred Watzl, Fleissner GmhH & Co., "The essential advantage ef soft tissue production (as with TAD) compared to the conventional method is that a high-bulk tissue quality can be produced with less fiber. The comparison [Parker/Richard] of a 2-layer tissue with 35 g/[m.sup.2] (2 x 17.5 g/[m.sup.2]) produced with the conventional technology, and a 1-layer tissue of 28 g/[m.sup.2] produced with TAD technology, shows that the through-air dried tissue--despite higher investment cost, a slightly lower production efficiency and more or less the same energy cost/[m.sup.2] of saleable product--nevertheless (results in) lower production cost/[m.sup.2] of saleable product."

Watzl noted that a TAD installation affects all areas of the process, not just pressing and drying. For example, "through-air dried tissues require a very uniform sheet both in width and over the time; otherwise, any difference in paper weight would add to irregular drying owing to the varying air permeability," he said. "Special attention therefore has to be given to the C-former with dry consistency during sheet formation and to uniform dewatering."

Participants in the Tissue Roundtable session during the recent Paper Summit in Atlanta, Georgia, suggested that, ultimately, the market will decide whether TAD is the best investment. "Some (quality parameters) can only be achieved with TAD," commented one papermaker, "but you have to ask yourselves, do we really need that high quality?" Added another participant, "with a low-tonnage machine, (the investment in TAD) is tough to justify; but a wider, high tonnage machine brings payback." In short, other technologies can offer quality improvements as well; whether those improvements will serve the tissue maker's purpose depends on what they want to do with the final product.