All corridors eventually for everyone leads here.
So sit sit
down?
Alright.
Ready?
Yes.
Yeah, it's good.
My favorite
place.
Whether you're a quick mover.
Then get out as fast as
you can.
A procrastinator.
Hang around in the toilet.
Is that...
am I allowed to say that?
Or a frequent visitor?
Need to pee
quite a lot, got a small bladder.
There is always
paperwork.
It's good to have something soft.
Uh I usually go
for the cheapest.
So I think three ply is is the perfect.
Something too thin either.
I like top of the range.
Toilet
paper.
You want something layered and supportive.
Something you
just don't want to get wrong.
BYO toilet paper if I know it's
going to be really bad.
I'm holding till I get home I...
Yeah I'm home or nothing for sure.
An emotive subject Wendy
was convinced Cottonsoft were making the holes bigger so she
got less paper.
While Nicky's long rolls were not getting
longer.
We'll get to the bottom of this soon.
But first we need
to visit Kumeu where Rod Lyons lives.
Rod's like you.
I like to
get value for money and I think everybody does.
We first met
Rod six years ago when he came and sat down at TVNZ's
toilets.
Don't normally sit on the loo when the door open.
He was convinced toilet paper was shrinking and he had the
stats to prove it.
Our toilet rolls are getting smaller.
Yeah.
And we're having to buy more of them.
They generally
had two hundred and 20 sheets.
Just recently I did a recheck
and virtually all of the manufacturers had 190 sheets per roll.
That
was 2016.
So we asked Rod to have another look,
we'll get back to him soon.
When Paul Smith needs to go, he can
go with the confidence of knowing his subject well.
Find
it quite difficult to choose which toilet paper I want to
buy because they all look the same.
Paul heads the testing at
Consumer New Zealand.
Annually it tests toilet paper over four
different categories including softness.
We make softness the
most important in our overall score because that's what
people tell us they they want when they're buying toilet
paper.
Then there's the puncture test.
Cuz the last thing you
want is something puncturing through the paper while it's in
use.
Perforation, and disintegration.
Got aging
sewage systems and we want to make sure that these things
actually do dissolve.
Consumer believes the top toilet paper
in New Zealand is Earth Smart.
It's nice to know that that you
can still get softness and good value from something that is
recycled paper.
Paul has special mentions for two others.
The
two that I would point out has been the most surprising of
being really good are Kiwi Soft and Soft Touch and those aren't
expensive brands.
At the other end was Value toilet paper
which does give good value.
It wasn't terrible, but it just
didn't have the softness or the the other performance of the
other the other papers.
It was the cheapest in our test though.
Value
toilet paper is produced by Foodstuffs who were poetic in
their response.
While we might not be the top of the tree for
luxury, we're proud to deliver New Zealand's best value TP.
We
know millions in Aotearoa agree because we provide nine billion
individual sheets annually.
Also Paul says do the math when
bulk buying.
Long rolls, for example, he believes aren't
always good value.
When we worked it out for cost per
metre doesn't work out any cheaper.
Back in Kumeu Rod says
in six years toilet paper brands change, there's specials
and now long rolls.
Sometimes you'll find the larger pack is
less economical than the smaller pack.
He concludes it's
tricky to compare but generally he claims.
I can say with
certainty that generally we are getting less product.
In 2016 Rod
said 200 sheets were standard.
Now 180 is the new normal.
The
house brands are not necessarily better value.
Which
is kind of strange.
And it's not only how many sheets but
how big they are.
Rod claims that the Value toilet paper for
instance has got shorter and skinnier.
This meant a
reduction in what you are actually getting in terms of
square meterage of about 15 percent.
Value says any
difference in size is because of a supplier or machinery change, so it
may not be your bum getting bigger.
I'm curious as to
whether I'm getting value for what I'm purchasing.
As for
Wendy's long rolls, Cottonsoft tells us they may be wider but
she's getting the same amount of paper.
The difference is
because they're upgrading their old machines.
And what about
Nicky's not so long roll?
Countdown, who makes Essentials
says: The price was reduced at the time to reflect the size
change but unfortunately since then, production costs and
inflation have continued to increase and our manufacturer
had to pass on these cost increases.
There is some good
news no matter which brand you choose.
Consumer says you can't
really be wrong.
One of the things the test showed is that
there's no absolutely terrible choice.
All of them all of them
work.
So do shop around.
Rod's right because...
I mean when
you gotta go you gotta go.
And remember: please leave your
paperwork behind.