Napkin conservation dismays fast-food crowd

MILWAUKEE — On a recent trip to McDonald’s with his family, Tim Machak found himself with all the ingredients for a sticky mess:

4 young children

4 ice cream cones

2 napkins

To make things worse, Machak couldn’t find a napkin dispenser anywhere. The fast-food franchise had removed them from the dining area several months ago, leaving employees at the counter responsible for rationing out a few at a time.

“It insulted me,” said Machak, who was so upset by the experience he complained to the managers. “You should be able to grab as many as you want.”

Unfortunately for Machak, grabbing is a thing of the past in this era of napkin cutbacks. Across the United States, the paper napkin has become more elusive than ever.

Gone are the days when people could grab a stash for their cars, their homes, their offices. Napkins are being hidden behind counters, stuffed into one-at-a-time dispensers and wrapped individually with plastic silverware. With food and paper costs continually rising and fast-food companies competing fiercely for dollars, many restaurant owners and fast-food corporations say napkin skimping is a simple but efficient way of cutting costs.

The paper napkin has lost 10 percent of its weight in the past decade, now its thinnest ever, according to Roger Bognar, president of a tissue consulting company based in Darien, Conn.

“A lot of restaurant chains know that people are grabbing a lot at a time,” said Joe Pawlak, senior principal of Technomic Inc., a food service consulting firm based in Chicago. “They see this as an area where there is a significant amount of waste.”

Perhaps the scaling back of napkins makes sense in the evolution of the table towel. According to “Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things,” by Charles Panati, the original napkin dates back to pre 500 B.C., when people used full-sized towels to wipe clean after meals with their fingers. By 1729, forks had been invented and the napkin shrunk into “serviette” size.

Two centuries later, Scott Products, now owned by Kimberly-Clark Corp., introduced an even smaller option — the paper napkin.

Napkins today vary in size but generally stay around 13 by 17 inches unfolded.

As thin as they’ve become, some industry experts question the point of further napkin shrinkage. All the restaurants in the U.S. together spend $500 million on napkins each year, which translates to less than 1 percent of each major restaurant chain’s spending.

Paper companies such as Georgia Pacific, SCA Tissue and Kimberly-Clarkhave all developed new dispensers that allow customers only one napkin at a time.

Georgia Pacific’s EZ-Nap dispenser is estimated to reduce napkin use by about 30 percent, said Jerry Hawkins, senior director of marketing.