The toilet tissue market will only break through the £1bn mark if promotional activity is kept under control.

Though the toilet roll category has grown 7.4% in the past year to £997m, while kitchen towels rose slightly more than 8% to £318.4m [Nielsen, 52 w/e 6 October 2007], penetration stands at almost 100%.

Premium innovation has gone some way towards boosting sales but Carol Smith, brand manager for Andrex, the top toilet roll performer for many years, says most of the growth is down to increased energy, pulp and production costs being passed on.

"Inflation is masking the real situation. Strip that out and it's a different story," she says. "Price promotions on gondola ends don't make sense in a saturated category. Consumers have to buy toilet tissue.

"Adjacent categories are not at full penetration, and you're then taking away chances to get incremental sales through them. It's a big challenge but we can't do it on our own. We need retailers to get on board."

Troy Warfield, Kimberly-Clark general manager, UK and Ireland, agrees.

He points out that key Andrex SKUs are out of stock in 20% of stores after 4pm. This is, in part, due to the popularity of the brand, he adds.

However, now that Swedish company SCA, which already owns the Velvet brand, has acquired Procter & Gamble's European paper business, including Charmin toilet tissue and Bounty kitchen towels, competition is likely to intensify. Traci Baxter, brand manager for Velvet and Charmin, second and third in terms of sales, says one of the benefits of bringing the newcomers into SCA's portfolio is that the company can look more critically at promotional deals.

"Our key concern is to try and reduce promotional reliance and to focus on driving value as well as volume," she says.

"Now that we have Charmin in our portfolio, we have two of the three biggest toilet tissue brands and are in a much stronger position."

If the promotions issue can be tackled effectively, the year ahead looks promising, especially for higher-value premium products. Andrex Quilts, which flagged up its Product of the Year 2007 accolade on-pack, performed strongly, gaining a 2.6% share of the market, according to the company, while Andrex Longer Lasting was even more impressive. This greener option, backed by a £2.5m campaign, is 50% longer than standard paper but takes up only 10% more space and uses less pulp and fibre to produce.

Andrex is not the first brand to take this approach. Charmin's Supersize double rolls have been on the market for a couple of years, but Andrex is the first to shout about it and to differentiate the new format via packaging with a vertical logo so that consumers understand they're getting something different.

Activity - television advertising, promotions, an interactive website and in-store floor graphics - shied away from a green message, however, preferring to focus on one of life's little frustrations - changing the roll.

A more overt environmental message is on the cards this year as the rest of the market prepare to play their own green cards. Tesco is adding a longer own label product to its range and others are likely to follow.

Kimberly-Clark's Smith says environmental issues are not the only way to boost value. She sees growth potential in moistened tissue and believes education, visibility and trial are key.

"It's the only way to drive the market value over £1bn," she says. "Ten years ago, we didn't know we needed mobiles and now we don't know what we'd do without them - that's the sort of attitude shift we want for moist toilet tissue."n