www.rightforhygiene.eu focuses on nonwovens-based baby diapers, feminine hygiene and incontinence products, as well as personal care wet wipes, emphasising the contribution they make to the well-being of both individuals and society at large. The site also explores how these products have changed to reduce environmental impact and what life was like before they were available.
These are things of which few of the more than 12,500 visitors expected at INDEX11 will need convincing.
In fact it’s fair to say that in developed countries the majority of consumers as a whole need little persuading of the merits of such products, even if reminders are always useful. Elsewhere in the world, however, there is still vast potential for growth, and not surprisingly the development over the past few years of the leading consumer personal care product companies has been centred on emerging markets.
Russia
One such market is Russia and its 142 million consumers. The country now accounts for more than 10% of the EU27 exports of nonwoven roll goods – of which 70% are spunmelt materials for the consumer hygiene market. And at the same time, about a third of the EU27 exports of personal care products have been destined for the Russian market.
In 2010, however, both Kimberly-Clark and SCA have inaugurated their own plants in Russia.
Kimberly-Clark – the world’s second-largest personal care products company – held a grand opening ceremony of its first plant in the country in June.
Located in Stupino, near Moscow, it houses two new Huggies diaper lines.
"Kimberly-Clark has made significant investments to establish our brands and build our organisation in Russia since 1996," said CEO Thomas Falk. "We have increased our sales ten times in ten years in the region and the decision to invest into development of local manufacturing became an important part of our strategy."
Currently, the plant has about 200 employees, 90% of them from Stupino itself. Specialists involved in the operation’s process have passed extensive training in Kimberly-Clark facilities in the United States, Europe and Korea.
"The Stupino plant is one of biggest capital investments Kimberly-Clark has made over the last two years, but this is only the beginning," said Jonathan Tarr, managing director of Kimberly-Clark Eastern Europe. "It was built with the ability to add further capacity as appropriate. We see the opening of the plant as a major step in the development of Russia’s hygiene and personal care industry."
SCA – the world’s second-largest personal care products manufacturer – has also inaugurated a new personal care plant in Russia in 2010, located in Veniov, in the Tula Region south of Moscow – at a cost of some €85 million.
The Veniov plant will manufacture Libero baby diapers and Tena incontinence care products to meet the growing market demand.
It complements SCA’s Sovetsk tissue plant, which is located in the same region and was inaugurated in February 2010. Tissue products – sold under the brands Tork and Zewa – are also produced in Svetogorsk, close to St Petersburg.
"We expect profitable growth for all of SCA’s hygiene-product categories in Russia and the CIS region," said Jan Johansson, SCA president and CEO. "The new Veniov plant brings us closer to our customers, significantly reduces transport volumes and enables us to more rapidly satisfy customer needs. Russia is a market with strong brand preferences, which suits us well."
In total, SCA now employs about 1,100 people in Russia, including approximately 200 in Veniov.
MENA
Vast potential for growth in hygienic disposables is also perceived across the Middle East and North Africa, which is collectively known as MENA and comprises 325 million people.
An annual birth-rate of 6.8 million illustrates the potential of these markets. The current MENA market for diapers, for example, is estimated to be an annual 4.4 billion pieces with a value of around $795 million. Penetration rates average 25% and vary from 90% in some of the Gulf countries to just 10% in countries such as Iraq and Egypt.
With an eye on this market, the leading manufacturer of personal care products, Procter & Gamble, has announced plans to build a new diaper manufacturing plant in Egypt, at a cost of US$176 million.
Completion will not be until 2020, however, when 40% of production will be sold locally and the rest exported to Africa, Asia and Europe.
"The new plant marks the first step of an ambitious expansion plan seeking to double our investments in Egypt in the course of the coming few years," said Mohamed Sultan, general manager of Procter & Gamble’s Egypt unit.
Japan’s Unicharm – another fore-runner in personal care – is also planning to build a plant for the production of hygienic disposables in Egypt – and with a projected start date of 2012.
While the company has established a joint corporation with a local subsidiary in Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, diaper production is not sufficient to meet increasing demand in the region, the company says, and its first dedicated in Africa will help meet this.
Egypt is very competitive and provides an attractive export base, being located in the centre and Middle East of North Africa. The SCA plant will be located in the Al Tajamouat Industrial Park in the city 10th of Ramadan.
South and Central America
A third region likely to experience considerable growth – as confirmed by the current investment activities of a number of the leading manufacturers of spunmelt nonwovens for hygiene – is South and Central America.
In rapid succession, two of the leading spunmelt producers – FitesaFiberweb and Companhia Providência – have just announced near-identical plans to add capacity in both North and South America this month.
FitesaFiberweb will install two new spunmelt lines over the next three years, with one at a new site in Lima, Peru.
In Peru, construction associated with the project is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2011 and material is expected to be commercially available in early 2012.
FitesaFiberweb is a joint venture which was only formed in August 2009 by Fiberweb and Brazil’s Petropar, achieving sales of US$200 million in the first-half of 2010. It has been benefiting from sustained rapid market growth in South and Central America and from the cost and operational benefits through the combination of Petropar’s Fitesa business in Brazil with Fiberweb’s hygiene spunbond facilities in the USA and Mexico.
Brazil’s Companhia Providência, meanwhile, plans to install two new Reicofil lines in Brazil and North America in equipment and other asset investments totalling US$120 million.
The production lines are scheduled to go into operation in the first half of 2012 and will result in an increase of 40% in the company’s installed capacity which will then amount to a total of 140,000 tons per year.
Asia
There remain, of course, huge opportunities for growth in many parts of Asia, and in one of the latest developments there, Daio Paper – one of Japan’s leading paper and hygienic disposables manufacturers – has announced it will build a new diaper manufacturing plant in Thailand.
The plant, scheduled for start-up in 2011, will produce between 16 and 18 million diapers on a monthly basis and will require an investment of Yen 3 billion.
The company estimates the current demand for baby diapers in South East Asia to be between 400-500 million a month, with strong growth prospects of 10% or more per year.
Products from the new Thai plant will be exported to Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and India, in addition to the domestic Thai market.
The dynamism of the nonwovens industry – as the cornerstone in the global growth of consumer disposables – will be on show at INDEX11.
