Essity adds new product line to Harrodsburg plant

HARRODSBURG, Ky. (WTVQ) – Essity, a leading global hygiene and health company that makes the Tork® brand of paper products, has expanded manufacturing capacity for Tork PeakServe® Continuous Hand Towels at its 350-employee production facility in Harrodsburg.

The new lines support an increased demand for this hand towel system in North America amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Essity’s original PeakServe lines are installed in Mannheim, Germany. Staff were not added at the Harrodsburg site for this expansion; rather, existing manufacturing staff were redeployed and trained to operate these new machines.

Introduced to North America in January 2018, Tork PeakServe recently won first place in the Innovation Awards Category at last month’s International Sanitary Supply Association (ISSA) Conference. ISSA is the leading trade association for the cleaning industry worldwide.

The Tork PeakServe Continuous Hand Towel System has revolutionized the hand towel category.

• Features Connected Towel Bundles: towels latch onto each other when loaded and stay connected to smoothly dispense one towel at-a-time without interruption ꟷ ensuring guests only touch the towel they use, improving hygiene.
• Serves Customers in Three Seconds: guests to can move in and out of the restroom quickly, facilitating improved efficiency and social distancing.
• Increases Dispenser Capacity: patented technology compresses each towel bundle by 50%, resulting in 2,100 towels per dispenser, reducing the risk of towel runouts.
• Allows Staff to Focus on Pressing Cleaning Needs: high-capacity dispensing decreases the need for frequent checks and refills, freeing up time to focus on cleaning and disinfecting.

Paper hand towels not only play an important role in improving hand hygiene, but are also the preferred hand drying choice among users.

According to a Tork survey conducted in April 2020, 68% of people prefer hand towels over air dryers, and 70% agree or strongly agree that they wish more facilities offered paper hand towels as an alternative to air dryers.

“The Harrodsburg PeakServe Team did an outstanding job of installing and safely starting up the first PeakServe line in North America,” said John Wells, site manager of Essity’s Harrodsburg facility. “It’s an important line that will efficiently bring the products to North American customers, and help them increase the safety of their commercial estabilishments during the pandemic and well beyond. I wish to congratulate the startup team and support teams for this great achievement.”