Asian nonwoven companies need to balance their product offerings with what market will pay
Suominen Corporation is a manufacturer of nonwovens as roll goods for wipes and for hygiene products and medical applications. Wiping products made of Suominen’s nonwovens include wet wipes for personal hygiene, baby care, household and industrial applications. The company’s hygiene and medical application products include sanitary pads, diapers, adult incontinence products, surgical drapes and swabs. Lynda Kelly, senior vice president, Care business area of Suominen, talks about the potential of the Asian hygiene market.
Which core areas do you work in? What is the growth potential in each niche?
The Suominen Group develops and manufactures nonwovens for three markets: for various wiping, medical and hygiene applications. These three markets are growing globally, even in developed regions like North America. Our target markets are forecast to grow annually by two to nine per cent, depending on the product segment and geographical region.
Suominen's Care business area focus on nonwovens for medical and hygiene
o medical means, for example, nonwoven components for wound care, surgical drapes, accessories and advanced wound care applications
o hygiene means nonwoven components for absorbent hygiene products, such as adult incontinence, baby diapers and feminine hygiene products
What percentage of profits do you earmark for R&D annually?
The Suominen group is expected to spend more than one per cent of net sales on R&D in the near future. Last year, we spent 0.8 per cent.
What are the trends in your segment? What new products can this vertical expect from Suominen during this fiscal?
Suominen continues to focus on the execution of its growth strategy. We are selectively investing in our brands and technology footprints. We will actively work within our product development concept, Suominen Innovation Machine and particularly the Front End Innovation Program, to develop new and exciting products.
Which are your biggest markets? Where does Asia feature in your growth strategy? Which are the countries seeking more technical textiles?
Our biggest markets are Europe and the Americas. Additionally, we have had a foothold in South America since the acquisition of the Paulinia plant in Brazil in 2014. We still see growth in our current market areas and while Asia is a very interesting market region, it is not Suominen's focus during the current strategy period of 2015 to 2017. To succeed in Asia, we believe a local manufacturing footprint will be needed.
What are your opinions on the nonwoven industry in Asia? What are the challenges facing the growth of the nonwoven industry in emerging markets?
Asia is a fast-growing market for nonwovens and has attracted significant investments from many multinational companies. It will continue to be an attractive market, given its low penetration rates, growing middle class and increased usage of consumer products. A major growth challenge in this emerging market is the sizable demographic of the millennial population in India and China. This segment is quite large but their overall income is lower than in developed markets. Consequently, companies need to balance their product offerings with what the market will pay. This can be quite a product design challenge.
What is the most revolutionary work by Suominen that has changed the industry?
One example of a segment where Suominen has been a global forerunner is nonwovens for flushable applications. Suominen is the market leader in dispersible products for wipes, continuing to innovate and upgrade flushable products. This could not be achieved without our solid understanding of the consumer's needs, listening to customers, as well as considering the expectations of the municipal wastewater systems.
Out of all applications for nonwovens, healthcare applications are growing at a fast pace. What are the probable factors contributing towards this development?
We continue to see growth in this segment, to protect the patient and healthcare personnel. Various nonwovens from surgical gowns, drapes and surface wipes play a critical protection role. As people grow older and live longer they require more medical attention, thus driving the need for more medical nonwovens.
How has your business grown in the last two years? What is your target for the next two?
Even though Suominen does have earlier experience and solid knowledge in nonwovens for medical and hygiene applications, Suominen actually established its Care business area only two years ago. So we have built the basics, established internal teams, built customer relationships, which obviously takes some time. The Care business area intends to play an important role in the growth strategy of the entire Suominen Group. If the group succeeds in the implementation of its business strategy, net sales will increase to roughly Euro 500 million in 2017.
The market for wipes today is drifting towards flushable wipes. To what extent has Suominen been successful in implementing this?
Suominen has the leading products in this area and has been the pioneering company in flushable nonwovens since the 1990s. Our latest addition to our flushable product range, launched in 2015, is Hydraspun Dispersible Plus. It is a substrate that breaks up over three times faster than our standard Hydraspun Dispersible product and clearly passes the INDA/EDANA third edition flushability assessment test protocol. We are taking flushable nonwovens to the next level and have filed a patent for the range of products.
Speaking about flushable products, we are carefully examining not only the business opportunities but also stakeholder expectations. There are many products in the market claiming to be flushable, yet are not so. Our products exceed industry standards and we are regularly working with municipal water systems, government bodies and industry groups to ensure that flushability standards are met by all industry participants. We aim not only to retain our globally lead in flushables but also seek to strengthen it. Therefore, we are, among other initiatives, investing in new world class production capacity at our Bethune, SC plant in the United States of America. The new wetlaid line to be installed will focus on producing nonwovens with higher added value to the growing segments of flushables, workplace, household wiping and medical wipes.
Which domestic or global fairs do you attend and what do you expect to gain from there?
To meet current and future customers and business partners, we attend all major events of our target markets across the globe, such as Surgical Conference & Expo, Biomed Device, IDEA 2016, Techtextil, EWMA, Hospitalar International, MEDICA etc
