The wipes market has undoubtedly seen unprecedented growth over the last 12-18 months as consumers looked for the quickest and easiest way to keep themselves and their homes germ free. Sales of wipes jumped about 39% practically overnight in March 2020 at the start of the Coronavirus pandemic, up from about 21.5 million standards unit (1000 wipes) to 29.8 million standard units. This means that about 8.5 billion wipes vanished from store shelves in about 11 days leaving stores empty and backlogs depleted.

Now that the dust has settled, experts are noting that wipes sales still remain higher than they were pre-Covid—about 20% higher, based on an average of the last five quarters.

The largest percentage of this growth centers around surface or household cleaning wipes. While sales of baby wipes, moist toilet tissue and other personal care items saw a spike in the midst of the pandemic, these sales have mostly returned to normal. However, surface care wipes continue to remain strong as consumers have adopted new cleaning practices that appear to be permanent—at least for now.

Manufacturers of surface care wipes including Clorox, Rockline and Nice-Pak are certainly preparing for this growth. Clorox has added new wipes capacity in the U.S. and has increased its contract manufacturing network both in the U.S. and globally. All three companies point to increased need for disinfectant wipes as the motivation behind these investments.

It looks like they are making a safe bet, at least from the consumer side. However, new regulations concerning single use products that contain plastic are coming down the pike in Europe, Canada and several U.S. states and these measures will surely impact the wipes market.

Of course, wipes manufacturers have been preparing for these measures since before the pandemic and have been looking at alternate raw materials and new end of life solutions for their wipe products. For more on plastic-free wipes, see page 18. However, will these alternative substrates be strong enough to handle the tough solutions needed to disinfectant surfaces and keep consumers safe from germs?

In time, technology will tell.


Karen McIntyre
Editor
[email protected]