Britain's hygiene product suppliers play down customers' shortage fears

Britain's toilet and tissue paper manufacturers have moved to reassure the public that there is no need to stockpile hygiene products because of concerns about the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Last weekend there was a nationwide outbreak of panic buying, following similar behavior in Australia, because of people being worried about disruption to supply chains.

But a joint statement by the Paper Industry Technical Association (PITA) and Confederation of Paper Industries (CPI) said the outbreak would not have any impact on its ability to manufacture or supply products to retail outlets.

"Coronavirus has no impact (or likely impact) on the actual demand for toilet tissue and it follows there is no need to panic buy or stockpile," the statement said.

"Manufacturers have increased production to cope with strong demand triggered by additional hand drying and increased hand tissue use stemming from heightened concerns over the airborne spread of disease. Additional product is now reaching retailers."

Several of the country's biggest high street retailers have introduced limits on the number of hygiene products customers are allowed to buy at a time, with hand sanitizer being the most widely controlled, by shops including Asda, Boots and Superdrug.

PZ Cussons, the company that manufactures popular brand Carex, told The Sun newspaper it had "significantly increased" production of hand gel and hand wash to keep up with public demand.

Long-life food products such as dried pasta have also been disappearing from shelves as consumers prepared themselves for the worst. Britain's peak rates of infection and spread of COVID-19 are not expected to be reached until around a week's time.

Jason Molins, a food industry analyst at Goodbody Stockbrokers, said stockpiling was in fact counter-productive. "It's not so much the virus itself that will lead to empty shelves, it's the panic buying that could cause problems," he said.

Last year, the United Kingdom used around 1.25 million metric tons of hygiene paper, with more than half that amount being toilet tissue. Half of that is imported, and the rest is made at 17 tissue paper companies in the UK.

"Consumers can be reassured that the present coronavirus outbreak has had no immediate impact on the UK tissue industry, tissue manufacturing, wholesale stock levels, the industry supply chain or supply to retailers," the joint statement continued.

Elsewhere, a survey by credit card operator Barclaycard has revealed how the on-going climate of anxiety about the virus is affecting retail behavior.

Coming on the heels of an extended period of poor weather, which discouraged people from going out, the impact of the coronavirus has seen a significant increase in business for food delivery and digital subscription services, and a decline in trade for restaurants, department stores and fashion chains.

More than one-quarter of those questioned in the survey said they were consciously staying away from environments where they thought there was an increased likelihood of picking up the virus.