As 2025 draws to a close, TWM asks figures from across tissue’s global supply chain for their retrospectives on the year … and predictions for 2026.
Franck Bancarel, International Duni – USA – IMEA – Asia Pacific, Mergers & Acquisitions Director, Duni Group
2025 was a year of continued progress, where opportunities came from building on earlier strategic investments. Through the integration of acquisitions such as SETI, Poppies Europe, Linepack and ByGreen we strengthened our core, diversified our portfolio and enhanced our sustainability profile. At the same time, efficiency gains in our sales and marketing organisation improved cost control and operating results.
Equally important, sustainability and product innovation remained central to how we compete and create value. Advancing fossil‑free materials and circular solutions were not separate from growth – it was part of how we delivered on customer expectations and long‑term goals. Finally, our cross‑functional way of working and clear strategic direction created engagement and strengthened delivery capability across the organization. Together, customer proximity, regional agility, efficiency and sustainability defined how Duni Group moved forward with clarity and confidence.
In terms of challenges, 2025 was marked by significant volatility, with tariffs reshaping supply chains, economic uncertainty weighing on European consumption, and geopolitical tensions influencing demand. Currency fluctuations and rising raw material prices added further pressure, creating a business environment that demanded resilience and agility. For Duni Group, these developments reinforced the importance of refining our go‑to‑market approach to local realities, while at the same time driving efficiency across the business. Navigating these challenges also underscored the need to continue advancing sustainable innovation at scale, ensuring competitiveness and positioning the company to capture growth as market conditions improve.
Growth potential in 2026 and beyond
In 2026 we see clear potential in hospitality and retail, sectors that benefit directly from stronger consumption and tourism. Southern Europe remains a growth region, driven by tourism and dining culture, while Southeast Asia continues to show robust demand both from tourism and everyday consumption. With regional supply chains in place and market‑specific strategies established, Duni Group is well positioned to benefit from these structural drivers of growth.
We see that continued volatility in the global environment – from economic uncertainty to shifting demand patterns – makes proximity to customers and end‑users more important than ever. Whether through tailored supply chain setups or new forms of collaboration, our strength lies in adapting structures and approaches to local realities.
At the same time, sustainability continues to shape expectations and industry development. Circular solutions and reduced environmental impact are integral to how we compete and differentiate. By combining responsiveness with sustainability, Duni Group is prepared to meet shifting demands and to drive the transition toward more responsible consumption.
Abizer Jani, Director, Paperlink International FZCO
This year was a pivotal year for Jani Sales Tissue Mill, marking our first full operational cycle since commencing production in October 2024. It provided us with significant opportunities to reinforce our presence in both domestic and export markets.
One of our strongest opportunities was the rapid expansion into the Middle East, where we dedicated 50% of our production to exports. The region’s demand for premium, affordable, and reliable tissue products aligns perfectly with our strengths – and India’s logistical advantage, with shipments reaching the Gulf in just one week, gives us a clear competitive edge.
A major technical milestone came from our successful production of 11.5gsm facial tissue, a grade very few mills globally can manufacture consistently. This allowed our customers to reduce material consumption, lower costs, and gain a competitive advantage in an increasingly price-sensitive and quality-demanding market.
These achievements were enabled by our long-standing commitment to high-quality products at affordable prices, supported by unmatched quality control, a strong after-sales service framework, and our company-wide total customer satisfaction approach. To strengthen this further, we are implementing an advanced ERP system to enhance communication, traceability, and operational transparency for customers, suppliers, and internal teams.
Our journey in 2025 also reflects our 46-year legacy, rooted in our origins in 1979 under Saifee Jani and later expansion into trading, waste paper supply, and global exports under the second-generation leadership of Abiali Jani, Abizer Jani and Abilfazal Jani. This deep industry foundation continues to present opportunities for innovation and growth.
As a newly commissioned mill, stabilising operations in 2025 presented several challenges. Raw material cost fluctuations, unpredictable freight dynamics, and energy volatility required disciplined operational management.
Another challenge was meeting the stringent specifications demanded by export customers – especially when producing lightweight, premium grades like 11.5gsm facial tissue. Achieving this consistently required extensive process fine-tuning, fibre optimisation, and precise quality monitoring. However, the successful launch of this grade turned an early challenge into a defining market win.
Adapting to new segments is part of our DNA. Our history includes a transformative moment in 2020 when the Covid-19 crisis forced us to re-engineer a tissue machine to produce high-strength, low-GSM kraft paper – helping us successfully penetrate the booming e-commerce packaging segment. That same spirit of agility helped us navigate the challenges of 2025 and emerge stronger.
Finally, as a sustainability-driven business working with 100% recycled fibre, ensuring steady access to quality waste paper remains a continuous challenge—but one we address through our long-established global waste paper trading operations.
Opportunities for 2026 and beyond
The Middle East is our strongest export market and it continues to be our most promising export destination. Historically dependent on Europe and the USA, customers in the region increasingly turn to India for faster deliveries, competitive pricing, and reliable supply. With weekly vessels and just a one-week transit time, Indian mills enjoy a clear logistical advantage, allowing us to serve customers with exceptional responsiveness.
Likewise the AfH sector in India – hospitals, hospitality chains, airports, and corporate establishments – are elevating hygiene standards, driving demand for premium tissue products. Our ability to offer high-quality, affordable solutions perfectly positions us in this fast-growing segment.
Tier-II / Tier-III retail growth: rising urbanisation and modern retail penetration are accelerating tissue adoption beyond metros, creating significant opportunities for consumer tissues, kitchen towels, and napkins.
New and emerging export markets: with the commissioning of PM3 in 2026, we anticipate strong growth in South Asia, East Africa, and selective European markets seeking stable suppliers of lightweight, premium-grade parent reels.
As for key trends in 2026, we expect to see an increase in capacity growth and premium tissue demand. The market is expanding rapidly, and suppliers with scale will be well positioned.
In response, we have finalised the investment in PM3/TM3, a state-of-the-art 80TPD / 3,000MT per month tissue machine scheduled to begin production in May 2026. With this addition, our total annual scheduled production capacity will increase to 82,000tpy combining:
PM-1 MG Machine
PM-2 Tissue Machine
PM-3 (New Tissue Machine)
We are also seeing increasing demand for lightweight, cost-efficient grades. Lightweight, premium-quality products that help customers reduce their costs are in high demand. Our response is that we are among the very few mills capable of consistently producing 11.5gsm facial tissue, giving our customers a cost advantage and improved competitiveness. PM3 will further enhance our ability to supply such advanced grades.
Customer-centric business models are also a growing trend. Manufacturers that provide strong support beyond supply will lead the future. We offer unmatched quality control, robust after-sales service, and operate with a total customer satisfaction philosophy, which has historically been ignored by many mills but remains central to our culture.
We are also seeing the advancing of digitalisation and intelligent operations. The future of manufacturing lies in data-driven efficiency and real-time visibility. For our business, we are implementing a modern ERP system to enhance communication, traceability, order management, and supplier coordination – bringing transparency and responsiveness to every interaction.
Demands for sustainable, recycled products also continues to rise globally. We operate on 100% recycled fibre, reinforcing our long-standing commitment to circularity and environmental responsibility. As Abiali Jani has emphasised: “Paper is not the enemy; it’s part of the solution.” Our approach is backed by decades of experience in global waste paper trading.
Grant Downham, BTG Global Market Manager
2025 was an excellent year for BTG’s Tissue segment. Despite being the historic and global leader in creping blades and related solutions, BTG was able to increase our volume and market share significantly in all regions, showing double digit volume growth.
The tissue market has continued to be an expanding, consistent growth market in all regions with both mature and developing markets continuing to show investment and growth, allowing BTG to support these investments in both current and new customers. The inflationary environment for consumers with the continued growth in demand has continued to lead to tissue producers needing to differentiate their product to stay ahead and gain their desired market share, where consumers are becoming more selective for best value.
Opportunities arose throughout the globe where continual competition in the retail segment, in both branded and private label requiring a continual push for incremental improvements in product specifications to stay ahead. This was particularly evident in the number of BTG projects to assist manufacturers in improving their product bulk or caliper.
Ultimately, the further emphasised need for tissue producers to be extremely efficient whilst further improving the final product quality to differentiate themselves has been a great opportunity for BTG. We have been able to assist our customers to meet these needs through our years of experience and continued market leading innovation in creping.
Despite a great year, there are always challenges for both our customers and BTG. One of the most impactful challenges or disruptions in 2025 for our customers and BTG was the implementation of tariffs and the related cost and supply chain implications. The instability and uncertainty were especially impactful, requiring continual communication and planning for different scenarios throughout the year to ensure we met our customers’ needs while ensuring viability for both us and our customers and supporting them through the tariff impacts dependent on their situation. The situation seems more stable going into 2026 and we are hopeful that impacts are reduced as we move forward.
A continued challenge in the industry has been the attraction, retention and replacement of talent, as well as the difficulty in ensuring rapid knowledge transfer to those entering the industry. AI and digitalisation are great opportunities to improve efficiencies in the industry, however the need for hands-on understanding, competencies and excellence continues to be needed in tissue. It is a challenge for all to keep the best available people where the demand for talent is integral in enabling a company to be a leader in this industry.
For 2026 and beyond we see continued growth and potential in all regions. China, although over capacity, continues to install new capacity and this will continue to lead to further competition in this region and the need for customers to be as efficient as possible. Both Latin America, the rest of Asia and eastern Europe are showing great potential and growth with opportunity for increased penetration of BTG solutions and expertise, while North America and Western Europe show excellent potential despite being such mature markets. This is especially true with continued new investments in TAD machines in North America, and significant investments and growth occurring in the UK as it becomes more self-sufficient to supply the local demand after Brexit.
Digitalization and AI will continue to remain a topic and focus into 2026 with the industry leveraging this for improved efficiencies and to maximize their return on investments as well as their personnel. BTG is well positioned to assist our customers directly or indirectly with this, with our dataPARC and MACS software, as well as online analysers and are starting to see some real potential for virtual sensors and other similar quality and efficiency projects to assist our customers.
The focus on sustainability and energy optimization, although different in its intensity by region, is an ongoing trend that manufactures and suppliers will need to continue to work on both in 2026 and beyond. BTG continues to focus on our customers’ efficiency of production as the biggest impact we can have in both these areas.
It is expected that consolidation in the market will continue, with ongoing mergers and acquisitions and investments of new machines in all regions. This along with the increased competition in the retail market will continue in 2026, requiring optimum efficiency and quality from manufacturers in both branded and private label. BTG will continue to focus our efforts in 2026 on optimising the efficiency and maximising the quality of our customers’ outputs through innovative products, services and tools.
Giulio Bignami, President of Microline
The year of Microline’s 25th anniversary was characterised by important new opportunities in the packaging and end-of-line automation segments. The AL80 Maxi launch aroused strong interest on account of its extended handling range, higher capacity and waste-free approach, that is perfectly compatible with the growing demand for efficient and sustainable wrapping processes. We saw an increase in requests for integrated projects combining shrink wrapping, bundling, case packing and pallet-stacking steps.
Customers are handling an ever-greater variety of products and collation patterns while operating within limited spaces and with existing equipment that must remain operational, which requires packaging machinery to be more compact, easier to integrate and capable of fast and repeatable changeovers. The move toward thinner, more sustainable films also requires precise and stable wrapping performance, while the shortage of skilled operators increases the need for simple interfaces and strong remote support. Our MRA – Microline Remote Assistance system played a key role in this setting, by providing immediate diagnostics and reducing downtime as a result.
In 2026, we expect continued growth in Europe and South America, where tissue producers are upgrading their packaging and end-of-line operations to manage higher volumes and a broader product mix. South America remains particularly dynamic and is being supported by several successful installations that have highlighted the reliability and straight-forward operation of our systems. We are also seeing an increase in the opportunities in household and personal care packaging applications.
Sustainability will continue to drive investment, as manufacturers strive to reduce film usage and adopt recyclable materials.
