Our business
Offering and market position
Essity is the leading global player in professional hygiene with the global Tork brand. Tork is a ”billion-dollar brand”, meaning a brand with annual sales exceeding USD 1bn. Essity’s offering comprises complete hygiene solutions, including toilet paper, paper hand towels, napkins, hand soap, hand lotion, hand sanitizers, dispensers, cleaning and wiping products, Internet of Things sensor technology as well as service and maintenance. Essity is the market leader in Europe and holds a market share that is approximately twice the size of the second largest player. Essity is the second largest supplier in North America and holds a particularly strong market position in the foodservice segment, where Essity estimates that it supplies approximately every second napkin. Essity also has strong positions in emerging markets, such as Russia and Colombia, where the company is the market leader. The global Tork brand provides significant synergies since customer requirements in relation to professional hygiene are similar in various parts of the world.
Strategy
Essity is prioritizing activities to strengthen Tork’s global market leading position through profitable growth and expansion to become the market leader in North America. Essity is focusing on increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty by helping our customers to be more efficient and environmentally friendly and by improving hygiene standards. The launch of innovative products and solutions strengthens the Tork brand and market positions. The Tork brand has revolutionized facility cleaning by bringing an Internet of Things solution to facility management in venues such as stadiums, amusement parks, hospitals, airports and offices around the world. Through its award-winning Tork EasyCube™ facility management software, Essity empowers cleaners and facility managers to track real-time data to ensure that soap and hand sanitizer, paper hand towels and toilet paper never run out, thereby lowering costs and improving user experiences. This enables customers to deliver higher cleaning quality more efficiently by having real-time information on what is needed, when and where. This new data-driven cleaning saves time and boosts the productivity and job satisfaction of cleaning staff. During the year, Essity launched eight innovations, including Tork PeakServe®, Tork ExcelCLEAN® and Tork PaperCircle™.
The integration of Wausau Paper Corp., acquired in 2016, proceeded according to plan during the year. During 2017, Wausau’s four brands were successfully migrated to Tork.
To improve efficiency and further increase value creation in the Consumer Tissue and Professional Hygiene business areas, Tissue Roadmap was launched in 2016. This is a plan to optimize the supply chain, increase cost and capital efficiency and secure capacity for potential future growth. In addition, the aim is to enable faster production adaptation in conjunction with innovations and product upgrades. Tissue Roadmap balances structural and organic efficiency opportunities in the supply chain with capacity expansion in selected markets.
New, improved Tork cleaning cloth with ExelCLEAN®
Tork cleaning cloths consist of range of nonwoven multipurpose soft and flexible cleaning cloths that are suitable for cleaning and industrial uses. The cloths are strong and durable and represent a good alternative to rental shop towels and rags. The cleaning cloths can be stored in a wall-mounted or portable dispenser, ensuring that they are close at hand, can be economically dispensed and are protected from dirt. The packs of folded cloths have been compressed by up to 26%, reducing the need for storage space and enabling even more cleaning cloths to be loaded into the dispensers.
Tork PeakServe® Continuous® paper hand towel system
Tork PeakServe® is a completely new hand-wiping system specifically tailored for high-traffic areas. With the highest capacity in the market, it allows facility managers to serve 250% more guests between refills1). This will result in fewer complaints of empty paper hand towel dispensers. The time cleaning staff save by less frequent refilling can be spent on other tasks to enhance the guest’s washroom experience. The system is easy to load, generates less waste and gives a more hygienic and pleasant washroom. Furthermore, the towels are compressed by 50%, which results in smaller pack sizes and thus reduced storage space requirements.
1) Compared with a traditional paper hand towel dispenser.