BlogFormat guide
Couch roll sizes and specification
Couch roll is the paper that protects every examination couch, treatment table and massage bench between patients. It is bought by clinics in ones and by distributors in containers, and the specification is simple enough that people stop reading it, which is where the money leaks. This is the reference we wish every enquiry arrived with.
The standard sizes
The common UK width is 500 millimetres, which covers a standard examination couch. A narrower 250 millimetre roll serves headrest and partial coverage work. Lengths cluster around 40 and 50 metres per roll, almost always two ply, with the sheet perforated at intervals so a used length tears away cleanly. A typical 40 metre roll carries a little over a hundred sheets between perforations.
Those numbers describe the centre of the market, not its edges. Veterinary benches, physiotherapy plinths and beauty couches all pull the spec in their own directions, which is why a programme should state width, length, ply and perforation pitch explicitly rather than pointing at a photograph.
Blue or white
White reads clinical and shows contamination immediately. Blue hides staining less than people assume but signals hygiene convention in many settings, and some clinical buyers standardise on it. There is no technical winner. What matters commercially is that blue and white are separate SKUs through your entire chain, from production run to warehouse bin, so an own brand range should commit deliberately rather than drift into carrying both by accident.
Ply, emboss and pulp
Two ply embossed is the working standard: the emboss adds bulk and stops the plies sliding against each other on a vinyl couch. Recycled fibre serves most of the market honestly. Virgin fibre buys whiteness and wet strength for clients who ask for it. The specification should state the pulp basis either way, because the two behave differently the moment a roll gets damp in storage.
The container maths
Couch roll is one of the bulkiest lines in hygiene paper, and the landed cost is decided in the loading plan. Our own standard couch roll loads 1,680 cases to a forty foot high cube at nine rolls to a case, because the rolls are wound to a reduced diameter. When you compare supplier offers, ask each one to state cases per container for the exact spec quoted, then divide the delivered container cost by that number. On a line this bulky, that quotient is the real price, and differences in winding tension move it more than differences in quoted case price.
Where Millgate fits
Millgate produces own brand couch roll and hygiene roll to your width, length, colour and perforation on European production, consolidated with the rest of your paper and cleaning chemical range into one container, invoiced from a US company. Send the specification your clinics order against and we will quote it per case and per container.