Wiping across Europe
October 1st 2003

Why does the UK prefer blue wipers to any other colour? Why do the Italians prefer centrefeed wipers and why do the Germans choose soft non-wovens? Mark Riley of Tork wiper manufacturer SCA Hygiene Products looks at the different types of wipers preferred across Europe and discusses the problems involved in keeping every market satisfied The Channel Tunnel and the advent of the Euro have both helped to erode demarcation lines in Europe. At the same time a growing number of companies have become international entities offering the same products and the same brand names throughout the Continent. This unified approach makes a lot of sense since it brings with it economies of scale. Customers, too, are becoming increasingly used to buying products boxed in internationally-branded packaging. However, a certain amount of flexibility is required with this one-product-fits-all approach since in some ways European countries are still refreshingly different from one another. Each has its own quirks and preferences some more explicable than others. Looking at the wiper market, lets take as an example the colour of industrial wipers. Colour should be a minor detail and one that comes way down the list: it is not nearly as important as size, grammage and wiper quality for instance. However, many countries have a definite colour preference. To begin with, the UK is overwhelmingly in favour of blue wipers. The majority of our blue wipers are sold here in fact at one time a staggering 90% of all blue wipers manufactured by SCA Hygiene Products were bought in the UK. Not so in Scandinavian countries, however, where off-white or yellow wipers are preferred. The Germans on the other hand have a distinct preference for green while the French prefer brown wipers. So what is the reason for these differences, and how does a company go about providing what the customer wants? In many cases the reason for choosing one colour over another comes down to tradition. Sweden has a preference for yellow wipers because the first product ever launched by Swedish-based SCA Hygiene Products was the A-Tork Yellow wipe. Yellow wipers quickly became the industry standard and this preference has been slow to change. The industry standard for wipes in Germany, however, is green. In the 1990s SCA acquired key German wiper manufacturer PWA which made green industrial wipers, and green had become the expected colour. SCA Hygiene Products continues to offer green wipers to the Germans, notably in the form of all-purpose Tork Servoil Green. Tork Servoil Green becomes Tork Servoil Brown in France where brown is the standard colour for general-purpose wipers. Why the French prefer brown is a mystery, but in other countries local characteristics can affect the countrys colour choice. For example, besides the favoured yellow wipers in Scandinavia there is a marked preference for grey or off-white products. These have a natural, recycled look which strongly appeals to the environmentally-aware Scandinavians. In the UK, however, we are averse to off-white wipers perhaps because to us they appear soiled. In the early days of recycling these greyish products were not well received in the UK and companies began to colour their recycled wipers blue instead. Blue wipers quickly became the industry standard for low-cost, all-purpose wipers. In the UK SCA Hygiene Products offers blue Tork Mekanic and youve guessed it Tork Servoil Blue. Another reason for the British preference for blue is that this has become the standard wiper colour in the food and catering industries. Blue wipers stand out strongly against products such as flour and sugar and this helps to avoid any food contamination. For the food industry we offer Tork Extra Blue and M-Tork. When it comes to wiper quality rather than colour, each country bases its choice on rather more logical reasons. Relatively sophisticated countries such as the UK, Scandinavia and Germany tend to prefer premium non-woven wipers whereas Poland, the Czech Republic and the Baltic States regard switching from rags to non-wovens as a fairly new idea. As one would expect, recycled products are particularly popular in environmentally-conscious Scandinavia. For less obvious reasons soft products are preferred in Germany. One factor that has a bearing on a countrys choice of wiper is, of course, the state of that countrys economy. In Germany, Austria and Sweden companies are willing to pay more for a high quality wiper if it has been proven to be effective. Nordic countries appear to prefer bigger wipers but these are unpopular in less developed economies, perhaps because they are perceived to be more expensive. The types of industry present in a country can also affect the choice of wiper. Low-cost centrefeed wiping systems are popular in Italy and Spain because these countries have massive tabletop industries and centrefeed systems are ideal for catering kitchens. We have looked at a range of individual wiper preferences but as one would expect in the face of an increasingly unified Europe, these differences are beginning to blur at the edges. Blue wipers are now selling more widely throughout Europe and Germany in particular is beginning to switch over from green to blue wipers. France continues to demand brown wipers but many Swedish companies now prefer off-white wipers to yellow. We at SCA Hygiene Products are always working towards improving our product assortment and we try where possible to offer a unified product range to every country. However we also accept that every country is different and we are proud to be able to offer each nation what it wants.

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