America is the second largest consumer of toilet paper worldwide, with an industry worth 10,4 billion dollars in 2020 alone. Kirkland toilet papers are a popular private labeled product at Costco, and a trusted brand in American bathrooms. However, much of their manufacturing process is a mystery. Costco doesn’t own any tissue-making plants so they have to create technical standards for suppliers in order to get on Costco shelves. Various manufacturers submitted bids for Costco’s approval. 

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Costco then conducts extensive testing of the products against specific standards. Fox Business reports that Kirkland toilet paper is one of the most popular items in Costco with 400 million sales annually. Sources estimate that the annual sales of Kirkland toilet paper are around one billion rolls, which is enough to wrap the globe around about 1200 times. 

Costco may be buying from a changing list of manufacturers because of the sheer volume of Kirkland’s toilet paper. The New York Times states that the majority of American toilet paper is made in North America. About 10% is imported from India or China. The US has strong domestic production so imports are only a small part of US toilet paper. 

The biggest toilet paper manufacturers in America most likely to be supplying Costco include: 

  • Kimberly Clark
  • Proctor and Gamble
  • Georgia Pacific
  • Clearwater Paper Corporation.

    • Clearwater Paper Corporation Clearwater Paper Corporation is known as one of America’s most well-known suppliers. It is in Lewiston, Idaho. Clearwater is not a common company to disclose the retail stores which sell their products under in-house label, however, evidence suggests that they’re behind Costco’s Kirkland collection. 

    Moscow Pullman Daily News reported a shipment of more than 200,000 toilet paper rolls for Costco in March of this year during the crisis that has been happening all over the world. Shannon Meyers of the Clearwater company has named Costco as one of the places where the manufacturing plant for tissue supplies its products. This particular shipment was in the year 2020. She stated that it was more than the entire year before that is proof of the fact that Clearwater is a frequent supplier of Costco toilet paper of the brand like Kirkland. 

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