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FORTUNE.COM // JULY 2019
GOING SOLO LIVING ALONE is increasingly
common. In 2018, 28% of
U.S. households were home to just one person,
according to the Census Bureau. That’s more than
double the proportion of single-person residences
in 1960, when the nuclear family peaked.
For several years now, businesses in the real
estate, home improvement, and jewelry sectors
have been marketing to this growing solo demo.
Enter the consumer packaged-goods industry.
Procter & Gamble’s Charmin brand, for
example, is capitalizing on this paradigm shift
with its newly marketed long-lasting Forever
Roll of toilet paper—available in 8.7- or 12-inch
diameter. The idea is to free up storage space,
a concept that caters to single dwellers because
they’re especially concentrated in dense urban
areas.
Other products for singles aim to minimize
food waste. Bread brand Arnold now sells 10-slice
Simply Small loaves for consumers who can’t bear
to throw away moldy slices—or freeze bread for
later use. Other examples: Jimmy Dean Simple
Scrambles breakfast
cups and Betty Crocker
Mug Treats microwave-
able desserts for one.
A common thread
here is the idea that mil-
lennials exhibit “a lack
of wanting to commit
to anything in general,”
says Mintel senior trend
analyst Diana Kelter.
“Maybe they don’t know
whether they’re going
to go out to eat or end
up cooking.” They aren’t
tied down to what’s on
their calendars, or in
their cabinets and clos-
ets. See also: retailers
offering clothing rentals
and beauty brands em-
bracing trial sizes.
One problem: Packag-
ing waste from individu-
ally wrapped products
quickly mounts. Now
brands face a new chal-
lenge: how to bundle
essentials in a way that’s
good for pocketbooks,
the planet, and sponta-
neous schedules.
Small Loaves and
Forever Rolls
The consumer packaged-goods industry
is catching up with a big societal shift
toward single living. By Lydia Belanger
N o w t h a t ’s
what I call a
good night in!
The promise of so-
called cord-cutting
was an escape
from the tyranny of
the cable package
and paying $107 a
month, on average,
for myriad channels
you never watch. The
replacement option—
streaming services
with their blue-chip
shows like House of
Cards and The Hand-
maid’s TaleÑhas cre-
ated its own problem:
Subscribe to more
than a few of Netflix,
Hulu, Amazon Prime,
HBO Now, or the new
services from Disney
and Apple, and you’re
approaching monthly
costs comparable
to a cable pack-
age. The solution?
A return of sorts to
the cable bundle—
and it could be the
cable companies
that facilitate it, says
Bruce Leichtman,
principal analyst for
Leichtman Research
Group. We’re already
starting to see signs
of bundling—just look
to music app Spotify,
which is now offer-
ing its “premium”
subscribers access
to Hulu.
—MICHAL LEV-RAM
BUNDLED UP
TV
FOOD: COURTESY OF PROC TER & GAM
BLE; GENERAL M
ILLS; T YSON FOODS; ARNOLD BRE AD; CABLES: PIOTR_M
ALCZ YK
—GETTY IM
AGES
