With the improvement of people's living standards, the strengthening of environmental protection awareness and the need for food safety, paper sticks have replaced plastic sticks, wooden sticks and bamboo sticks in more and more industries, such as lollipops, baking, cotton swabs (medical, daily care, make-up, electronic cleaning), etc. Paper sticks were invented by American Planet in the 1970s. Since then, the production technology has been continuously improved, the production efficiency has been increased, and the cost has become more and more close to plastic sticks, wooden sticks and bamboo sticks, and the strength and elasticity indicators are much better than the latter. . Most importantly, it is environmentally friendly, degradable, odorless and non-toxic, making it the first choice for consumers in developed countries. The Italian government even issued a decree banning the use of non-degradable plastic sticks in the cotton swab industry.

In 2002, some cotton swab manufacturers in my country introduced equipment and straight-rolling technology from Faro, Switzerland, and started mass production of Lollipop paper sticks to replace imports. While introducing technology, some manufacturers imitated Japanese equipment to develop oblique rolling technology and equipment, and the quality and stability of the products were constantly mentioned. In 2008, Australian CP also established the world's largest paper stick factory with sole proprietorship in Nantong, China. The overall technical level and output of China's paper stick industry are constantly improving. The author predicts that China is expected to become the world's largest producer and consumer of paper sticks within 3 to 5 years. Although the domestic paper stick market has experienced more than ten years of development, there is still a big gap compared with foreign manufacturers in terms of product quality, technology and management.

1. In terms of raw materials: due to cost pressure, most Chinese manufacturers have abandoned imported food-grade kraft paper or domestic food-grade certified paper; domestic small paper mills have also developed paper suitable for paper stick production based on the needs of this market, but In the process design, only the physical properties of the paper are considered, and the requirements for food safety or hygiene are not considered. Some only made some minor adjustments on the basis of the original papermaking process of cultural paper. Add talc, industrial chemical auxiliaries and dyes to reduce costs, and may even contain recycled waste paper and fluorescent agents. There is a big safety hazard in terms of quality, and there is a big gap in product quality between batches. These may have fatal product defects and quality risks for lollipop manufacturers. The turmoil of plasticizers and melamine that happened in the food industry before should attract the attention of the entire paper stick industry, and it is also worthwhile for lollipop manufacturers to choose suppliers carefully when purchasing.

2. The overall industry scale is small, and most of them are in the small workshop scale. Most of the manufacturers have registered capital in the hundreds of thousands. Buy a few pieces of equipment and start production after leasing a factory, lacking a mature management model. After decades of development, foreign manufacturers have strong capital, technology and management strength. They all carry out food safety production system management in accordance with the requirements of HACCP, ISO22000 or FSSC22000; our company has even achieved a unique barcode for each individual package. traceability management.

3. The Japan Sanitation Federation has strict definitions on the ink used for black paper sticks and whether they will fade; however, most manufacturers in China use the dyeing process to produce, and the color fading is serious; even some manufacturers use unqualified black kraft paper for direct production, and its dye components May contain azo or other harmful ingredients;

4. The world only uses ton as the unit of measurement in China. For example, taking the most common 73 mm long and 2.42 mm diameter paper stick in the cotton swab industry as an example, the weight of each 100 Chinese products is more than 36 grams; foreign manufacturers are generally about 33 grams, but the strength index is about 33 grams. Better than the former; under the same price per ton, the cost difference is 10%; some manufacturers deliberately increase the weight of a single paper stick, and even shorten the drying time to increase the moisture of the product, which will increase the cost pressure of downstream products. At the same time bring quality risks;

5. Lack of necessary detection methods. Most manufacturers do not have the testing equipment and qualified personnel for raw materials and finished products, and only test the appearance and size of the products, and leave the factory without testing the intensity indicators, fluorescent substances, and colonies;

6. Unable to provide personalized service to customers. Most manufacturers only have the ability to produce white paper sticks, and colored paper sticks can only be done by dyeing process. Some manufacturers have tried to produce printed paper sticks, but the clarity of the finished pattern is poor.