Westminster Paper Mills Limited, as the company was originally known, opened in 1922.
#SCOTT TOILET PAPER FULL#
“So, once their shelves were approaching full and the warehouses were back to normal and our warehouses were back to normal, it was like, ‘OK, the supply line is full again we can go back to more flavours.” When you are out of stock of toilet paper, they kind of go, ‘whoa,’” Evans says. When you are out of stock in spices, there’s a hole in the shelf. Instead of producing its regular lineup of about 25 different products, it focused on five products as a way of expediting production (machines have to be changed up to produce different products) – only returning to pre-pandemic operations 14 to 16 months after the pandemic began. So, in order to meet the early-pandemic demand, Kruger honed in on producing certain “flavours” of Purex, such as 12- and 24-roll packages. The machines are not cheap – so you don’t just buy them to have them sitting and waiting in case you run them.” This is a really capital intensive business. We shipped February, March of 2020 – it feels like ancient history now – we were shipping 77, 80 even 100 per cent more than the same month the year prior,” Evans says. And then all of a sudden it was the hottest commodity in town.”įor Kruger employees, the soaring demand for toilet paper was a source of pride in the value of their work to everyday folks. We knew that, but you didn’t appreciate that. “We make a product that, now, we know is essential. The importance of toilet paper in people’s lives was never clearer than in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when customers flocked to stores across North America to stock up – often leaving shelves empty. “We are still making a product that we need, which is pretty cool.” And 100 in the same place is amazing,” Evans says. You think about how many businesses have not made it past their first five years, so to be around for 100 is amazing. Although the local plant rarely opens up to the public, it’s not quite as top secret as its Memphis or Sherbrooke mills, where visitors must sign confidentiality agreements to ensure tricks of the trade aren’t revealed.Īlong with toilet paper, the New West plant also produces “lots and lots” of Scotties facial tissue, the Number 1 brand in Canada. In honour of its 100th anniversary, Kruger recently invited employees’ family and friends, as well as some of its stakeholders, to tour the plant as a way of showcasing the work of its employees. “Purex is the Number 1 bathroom tissue in Western Canada. “Our bread and butter is Purex that is the reason this mill exists,” says Mark Evans, general manager of the New West plant. Located near Stewardson Way, it’s the only tissue paper production site in Western Canada. Today, the Kruger Products plant in New West produces more than 11 million cases of bathroom and facial tissue annually and employs over 360 employees. More than 40 trillion rolls of bathroom tissue have rolled down the production line at a local manufacturing plant in the past century.
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