It’s a crapshoot: The great toilet paper review

It’s not just you – toilet paper is confusing. While dashing through your local supermarket, there’s every chance you’ve fallen prey to some clever tricks, despite this – in theory, at least – being a heavily regulated product.
6 mins read

Toilet paper is an odd topic for a financial publication. But few supermarket items are as essential, regulated and confusing as the humble loo roll.

Take, for example, that pack of ultra-luxe supreme quilt rolls you may have treated yourself to recently. They were the same price as the far more ordinary-looking two-ply alongside them, so why not?

But through clever misdirection and marketing, you, like many others, fell for a retail trick that had you returning home with a near-identical loo roll in makeup and cost, but that was almost half the size.

In the early 2000s, South African lawmakers drafted regulations to curb these and other sneaky toilet-roll tricks.

Until then, tissue paper was the Wild West of product regulation — manufacturers could reduce sheet sizes, alter roll dimensions and sell less paper without telling you.

But while legislation brought some transparency to the market, manufacturers have since remastered the art of confusion. And, according to our home measurements, some may wittingly or not be departing from the mandated minimums.

A deep dive into toilet paper might seem odd, but if you’ve ever scratched your head in the household products aisles, or are looking for some semi-decent fodder for a Sunday braai debate, there’s likely something in here for you.

The laws that changed toilet paper

For starters, the law. So nefarious were the tricks used by toilet paper manufacturers that in the early 2000s, South Africa moved to regulate the product. At the heart of the regulations is the nonsensical “roll” as a unit of measurement.

At the time, and still in some countries, manufacturers were free to determine exactly how much paper a roll could contain. And many, unsurprisingly, found ways to make it look like shoppers were getting more paper for their money than they actually were.

Bigger cardboard cores, smaller sheets and varying numbers of sheets per roll led lawmakers to stipulate what a toilet roll should look like, and by 2012, the regulations were in place.

South Africa’s National Standards (SANS) dictated that toilet paper “squares” were to be 110mm by 100mm. They also stated that one-ply toilet paper must sell in 500-sheet rolls and two-ply in 350s — and both were to be marked as such on the packaging.

Regulations also required the cardboard tube at the roll’s core to be no wider than 40mm to prevent manufacturers from making a roll look bigger than it was.

Toilet paper has since evolved, and a 2016 amendment allowed for more sheet options — such as 300-sheet single ply and 200-sheet double ply. SANS also added regulations around a relatively new invention: three-ply toilet paper.

The most elite of loo rolls was allowed to appear in 200-sheet options, provided this was marked. Nine years later, this is the market segment where a lot of tricks are still taking place.

Shaving millimetres off your toilet rolls

Still, the laws made South African toilet paper among the most regulated in the world – at least in theory. Because who, really, is spending their afternoons with five brands of store-bought toilet paper and a ruler? That’s right – for the purposes of this story, and this story only – this guy is.

Though we’ll acknowledge taking a ruler to a single sheet of toilet paper is deeply pedantic and likely not the most accurate method, we did it anyway. And the results are, on the surface, underwhelming, with just a few manufacturers seemingly not quite hitting the stipulated marks.

Multiple measures of different sheets found that, deliberate or not, some toilet paper on South African supermarket shelves did not meet the stipulated regulations.

Though this is not something to worry about on a personal level – if you are able to notice 2mm missing off the top of your square of toilet paper, you likely have other things to worry about – extrapolated over an entire factory run, these millimetre shavings might result in major bottom-line savings.

Take, for example, a sheet that, innocently undercuts the regulations by 2mm off its length and 1mm off its width. This is entirely unnoticeable to the average user, but it results in 308mm2 saved per sheet or 107,800mm2 saved per roll.

If our maths is correct, for every 34.7 rolls sold, in other words, that manufacturer would have enough extra material to make another full roll — without anyone ever really noticing.

Though this might seem like an unlikely cost-cutting measure, these operations can comfortably run to tolerances that are this small. And while some of the elite loo roll manufacturers can afford to play it safe by generously tossing in another millimetre to each sheet, it’s not unreasonable to think that others with slimmer margins do the opposite.

Less toilet paper for your money

Of course, if you’re pulling a pack of toilet paper off the supermarket shelves, these aren’t the kinds of reductions you’ll notice. So, what’s likely going on when you suddenly notice that the roll you have to hand is much skinnier than you’re used to?

This is more likely to do with the increasing prevalence of 200-sheet rolls – and a slew of clever pricing and product positioning strategies that make it somewhat difficult to compare roll to roll.

With the inclusion of more sheet size variations in 2016, manufacturers have been free to make two- and three-ply toilet paper with far less actual toilet paper surface area. And by employing several tricks, it’s growing increasingly difficult to know how much more you’re paying for your rolls. At times, that’s almost double.

Perhaps the sneakiest example of this is in what Baby Soft calls its “Supreme Quilts”.

This two-ply paper is priced identically to Baby Soft’s other two-ply paper – except the rolls consist of only 200 sheets against the more typical 350 sheets for two-ply rolls. On a quick look, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’re getting the same size product – there’s only a small reference to these rolls containing 200 sheets on the side of the packaging.

And if you bought the two-ply Supreme Quilt toilet roll, you’ll have paid the equivalent of just under R300 – R130 more for the same amount of paper as the perfectly adequate two-ply alongside it.

There are other less obvious examples, too.

Woolworths, for example, sells one-, two- and three-ply variations under its private-label brand – and if you can compare the costs of each while standing arms-laden in a busy store, you’re a far smarter shopper than this writer.

In what reads like a high school maths problem:

  • Woolworths’ one-ply rolls are available only as an eight-pack of 500-sheet rolls, costing R73.99.
  • Two- and three-ply toilet paper isn’t sold in eight packs; the closest comparison is a nine-pack.
  • A two-ply nine-pack of 350 sheets costs R79.99.
  • And if you’re tempted to splurge on the three-ply, you’ll pay R94.99 – but that pack is only available in 200 sheets per roll.

Given the above, how much are you paying per sheet, and roll, and which represents the best value?

Exactly.

Similarly, Twinsaver sells its nine-packs of two- and three-ply toilet paper at an identical price. A hurried shopper might grab the three-ply thinking they’ve got a deal, only to return home with a much skinnier roll with 150 sheets less.

And Pick n Pay now sells “mini” two-ply rolls of 200 sheets each. At R48.99 for nine, this looks like a good deal – but per sheet, they’re unsurprisingly more expensive than its bigger rolls. On a quick look, the mini-rolls are well-priced – often the same as Pick n Pay’s two-ply product. But it only has 200 sheets, rather than the two-ply norm of 350.

The manufacturers and supermarkets could make it easier by selling all rolls in the same pack size and with the same number of sheets, but where’s the fun – and profit margin – in that?

The best TP bang for your buck

Toilet paper is, it seems, deeply, and possibly deliberately, confusing — and that’s before you consider whether you want soft-wave texture or soft-touch cushions, and whether that should come bearing puppies, clouds or, weirdly, leaves.

If finances dictate your paper purchases, it’s best to treat any three-ply toilet paper with deep suspicion — if it seems competitively priced, that’s because each roll has fewer sheets. And unless cash flow is an issue, avoid the mini-rolls; they’re more expensive for the amount of paper bought, despite having a lower price point.

Generally, you’re also better off avoiding the singles and small packs — the lowest per-roll prices appear in the 18-pack range.

And after checking the price of non-discounted toilet paper across South Africa’s leading supermarkets, the cheapest option was always the private-label option. Pick n Pay and Checkers have matched each others’ prices for this product at R129.99, while Woolworths sells its house brand two-ply for R159.99.

But, as is always the case, specials abound – and when Currency checked, some time-sensitive deals had 18 packs of two-ply for as low as R115 each. Which, really, should see you racing down the aisles, Covid-trolley-dash style, to stock up.

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Andrew Thompson

Andrew is an award-winning freelance journalist with over a decade of experience covering the quirkier side of South Africa’s business landscape. Avoiding heavy annual reports and complex financial jargon, he’s made a career out of answering the kind of braai-side questions that spark peculiar curiosity, like: are parking bays really getting smaller? How much extra are we paying for pre-chopped vegetables? And are those arcade claw machines really rigged?

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