By Vivian Tyson, Senior SUN Editor • From Turks & Caicos Sun

Believe it or not, the Turks and Caicos Islands now has a tissue, hand towel and napkins manufacturing plant, and the product seems to match or even surpass some of the brands that we have become acquainted with on the supermarket shelves.

Everyday Tissue Factory, owned by Frenchman Charles Julien Halejcio and located on the Caicos Depot building in South Dock, Providenciales, manufactures up to 10,000 tissues a day, plus hand towels, tissues and napkins.

Halejcio said that some persons are still in amazement that the three-month-old factory could be established in the Turks and Caicos Islands. Not only does the Everyday produce napkins, tissues and hand towels, it also manufactures the core that tissues and hand towels are rolled on.

“We launched our local brand which is “Everyday”, because it is a product we use every day. We started about three months ago now after the training of the workers. We have to train our people especially bout safety issues because we are dealing with machines, so there are some safety methods that they have to understand first. I can say now that we are in full production. Our product is quality product, it matches all imported product.

“We produce all the ranges of tissue products, from toilet paper, kitchen towel, jumbo rolls, centre pulls, all the tissue needs we can do it over here; if you want it black, if you want it white, if you want it big, if you want it small, we can do it here because we manufacture. It proves that in Turks and Caicos we can produce locally. That is important also because today 99 percent of everything is imported from overseas,” Halejcio said.

He said that the machines at the plant are some of the most sophisticated anywhere in the world, and are able to do custom napkin printing.

“We have about 17 different machines; production machine, packaging machines, cutting machines and we have machines that can be used to print whatever you want on your napkins, it could be your business’s name or if you are having a wedding or a party we print your name or the occasion. We do you logo and anything you want to have printed,” he said.

Halejcio said that the raw material is imported but is hoping that very soon he will be able to manufacture it locally using waste newspapers and cotton. He noted however that for the jumbo rolls to be manufactured, he would have to setup a water treatment plant to handle the chemicals that would be used to treat the recycled papers.

“You have those jumbo rolls that have been imported, because we don’t manufacture them here at the moment, but in the future I hope we will. We (currently) import them (raw material) mainly from the US and Canada, and we use the main machine to transform them into what we need.

“Today our processing is a dry process; it does involved water of any kind because we import the jumbo roll. If we plan to produce the jumbo roll over here that will involve a lot of water, bleach and acid. At the moment there is no treatment plant in the Turks and Caicos, so if we decide to go in that direction, we would also have to build next to it a treatment plant for the waste water,” Halejcio said.

He said that on tissue production days, the plant employs up to 12 persons, but when on jumbo rolls production day, about four persons are currently needed.

“Four people are enough to produce the jumbo rolls, but when we produce the toilet paper, that is when we need 10 to 12 people mainly for packaging because it involves a lot of hands. All our toilet papers are individually wrapped and so that takes a lot of hand power,” he said.

Halejcio said he is pleased with the feedback that he has been getting from the businesses that he went to pitch the product. He however, stated that it took a great deal of proof to convince some of the business operators that Everyday is a Turks and Caicos tissue manufacturing establishment.

“I went to a few established businesses over here – restaurants and resorts – most of the people didn’t believe that this is happening. They believed that I imported it, but I can tell you that we can make such things in Turks and Caicos. Slowly but surely I can say that the response is good, mainly because our paper is made out of recycled, and more and more people have environmental concerns, and they like the idea of having environmentally-friendly product in their hotel,” Halejcio explained.

He said that he would be using the slow tourism period to pitch his business so that when the peak of the season comes around, he would by then become a household name.

Halejcio revealed that his products are being sold for far less than other existing brands in the supermarkets. He said that the Everyday toilet tissues, napkins and hand towels are now available mainly at Quality Supermarket, Price Club and Kishco. He is hoping to strike an agreement with Graceway IGA Supermarket soon.

In the meantime, Halejcio is singing the praises of the Dr. Rufus Ewing administration for paving the way for his business to be established in the TCI.

“I want to thank the Government, the premier, the minister of finance, TC Invest, especially Rochelle Thompson, who has helped me a lot through the process of establishing this first industry in the Turks and Caicos,” he said.

Charles Julien Halejcio, owner of Everday Tissue Factory stands in front of a stack of tissues, napkins and hand towels while displaying packed case of tissues

For more on this story go to:

http://suntci.com/mass-production-tissue-factory-opens-in-tci-p1268-108.htm