Centrefeed vs Paper Hand Towels: Which Costs Less Per Wipe?

Centrefeed roll and folded hand towels do overlapping jobs, and most UK sites end up with both because nobody ever sat down and worked out which should go where. The answer is not the same for every location, but it is usually clear once you compare on cost per use rather than cost per pack.

The headline: centrefeed is cheaper per metre, towels are cheaper per use

This is the core of it, and it catches people out.

Centrefeed gives you far more paper for your money by weight and by metre. But it is dispensed by the user pulling an arbitrary length, and people consistently pull more than they need. Folded towels dispense one sheet at a time, so the quantity per use is fixed by the format rather than by the user.

Where consumption is disciplined or supervised, centrefeed wins comfortably. Where it is a public washroom full of strangers, towels often win despite the higher headline price, because the waste rate on centrefeed can run very high.

Where centrefeed is the right call

• Kitchens and food prep. Tasks vary in size, and you need to be able to take a large piece for a spill and a small one for a wipe. Towels are the wrong format here. See our white roll range for food contact use.
• Workshops, garages and industrial. Absorbency and wet strength matter more than portion control, and users are staff rather than public. Our blue roll range covers this.
• Staff only washrooms. Waste behaviour is much better when people know the cost lands on their own department.
• Cleaning trolleys. One roll covers every task, which beats carrying multiple products.

Where hand towels are the right call

• Public washrooms with heavy footfall. Portion control is doing real work, and the presentation is better.
• Customer facing hospitality washrooms. A folded towel dispenser reads as more considered than a centrefeed roll on a wall bracket.
• Anywhere blockages are a recurring problem. Long lengths of centrefeed are more likely to end up in a toilet than a single folded sheet.

The cost that gets forgotten: dispensers

Comparing the paper alone gives a misleading answer. Towel dispensers are generally cheaper to buy than centrefeed housings, but towel formats are far less interchangeable between manufacturers, which creates lock in. Centrefeed housings are more standardised, so switching supplier later is easier.

If you are fitting out a new site, this matters more than the first year of paper cost. If you are working with dispensers already on the wall, it is largely academic and you should optimise for what fits.

How to actually work out your own number

Do not rely on manufacturer sheet counts. Measure real consumption over four weeks.

1. Pick one washroom or one kitchen station.
2. Record exactly how many rolls or packs it consumes over four weeks, with normal usage and no announcement to staff.
3. Divide the total paper cost by the number of uses estimated for that location.

Sites that do this frequently find their real centrefeed cost per use is two to three times the theoretical figure, because of over pulling. That does not mean centrefeed is wrong. It means the comparison you were making on paper was not the comparison happening in the building.

Reducing centrefeed waste without switching

If centrefeed is right for the task but the waste is unacceptable, the fix is usually the dispenser rather than the product. Housings with a tear serrated edge and a controlled exit slot cut over pulling substantially, compared with an open bracket that lets users take a metre at a time.

Choosing the right length also helps. A 150m premium roll changed rarely is easier to control than a 40m eco roll that runs out mid shift and prompts people to grab whatever is nearest, which is how colour separation breaks down in kitchens. Our centrefeed format guide and catering roll selection guide cover this in more detail.

We manufacture centrefeed blue and white roll in Leicester and supply UK businesses by the pallet. For a cost per use comparison built on your own site numbers, get in touch via our wholesale quote form.