Did you know?
In South Africa a family of four uses approximately one toilet roll every 1.5 days.
Start manufacturing your own toilet paper today
To start and run a business, it is not enough just to have a good, viable idea. You also need to have the right skills, attitude and personality to make the enterprise succeed.
It’s most likely that you will need finance when setting up a toilet roll production business. The toilet roll making equipment is available in South Africa and ranges from R175 000 for the bottom end of the range model to R500 000 for a fully automated machine.
When creating a business plan for this business you’ll also have to include raw material required to make the rolls.
These are supplied in jumbo tissue rolls and cost from R6 600 per ton. You will also have to take into account staff and rental for a property that is suitable for the business.
Zhauns, a supplier of business opportunity machinery supports BEE by offering a variety of empowering programmes for street vendors, unemployed and disadvantaged groups through consortiums, local and international joint ventures and has financial links which assist entrepreneurs in need of funding. Director Riad Ahmed of Zhauns, says, “Toilet-paper makers can manufacture a roll for less than 50 cents.
“A start-up would need 2-5 people operate a small business of this kind. It takes about 3 months to set up the business and to properly train staff to operate machinery.” Zhauns offer free training when they install equipment purchased through them.
For more information on Zhauns Toilet Paper Manufacturing – visit their website here.
Speak to owners of similar businesses
The best source of information you can find about an area of business, is other business owners. They will tell you in practical terms whether your ideas are feasible or not. To locate similar businesses which can give you advice on any aspect of their business, contact your local Chamber of Commerce.
For support and guidance
If you are going to be a business owner you need to have business skills, even more so than technical skills about your product or service. This means you have to understand finance.
You need to know how much your idea is going to cost you, whether it will make enough money to pay back these costs and make enough in addition to satisfy your requirements.
The dti (Department of Trade and Industry) recognises that support in the form of advice from specialist organisations is vital and the offer support groups to SME businesses.
One such arm is Khula Enterprise Finance which is a wholesale finance institution that has well-developed ties in the public and private sectors.
Through these channels – which include commercial banks, retail financial institutions, specialist funds and joint ventures they play an effective role in order to bridge finance gaps that are not addressed by commercial financial institutions in the small business sector.
Which works better buying machinery first or getting orders before buying equipment?
Look at your market before spending the money. It is good business practice to establish if there is a market for your product before buying expensive equipment. For this reason, it is vital to do research and to prepare a business plan.
Renting manufacturing equipment for this purpose may be a solution. Once the business is up and running you can then consider buying your own machines.
Buying outright can result in a huge drain on cash in the first year of business.