INDA’s World of Wipes® conference highlighted innovation, regulation, sustainability AI and supply-chain collaboration.
INDA — the Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry based in Cary, N.C. — held the 2026 edition of its World of Wipes® (WOW) conference in Nashville, Tenn., June 29-July 2 under the theme “Redefining Wipes: Smart. Sustainable. Scalable.” With three days of conference sessions and almost 50 exhibitors, this year’s WOW was a content-rich experience for the more than 400 attendees.
Monday began with a newly revamped Wipes Development course. Delivered by Crown Abbey’s Heidi Beatty and Dr. Paul Davies, the course covered everything needed to bring a new wipe to market, including market and concept development, material sourcing and selection, converting and packaging, regulatory topics, and scale-up.
Networking And Innovation
A valuable component of WOW is networking — whether via the well-attended welcome reception, morning “Breakfast Connections,” conference session coffee breaks, hosted innovation networking group lunches, or two evenings of exhibits and receptions. During the evening activities, nearly 50 companies showcased recent innovations.
While the entire exhibition hall was bustling with activity, the three booths devoted to the WOW Innovation Award finalists — The Clorox Co., for its Clorox™ Refreshables™; Lenzing Fibers Inc., for its Lenzing™ DualWipe; and Rockline Industries, for its First Defense™ Fentanyl Detection Wipe — were non-stop hives of activity. After the votes were counted, Rockline Industries was presented with the 2026 World of Wipes Innovation Award.
Since INDA first began arranging lunch-arounds — lunch time discussion and networking sessions — during conferences, the option has grown in popularity. At each conference two to four organizations are selected to host a group lunch in which they discuss their start-up journey, technologies and unique strategies for dealing with industry challenges, among other topics. Host companies range from nascent start-ups to some of the largest corporations in the industry. The hosts for this year’s event were Drankful, makers of Butt Napkins, which shared its start-up and pivot journey; and Bell Flavors & Fragrances, which provided some hands-on interaction with different scent and flavor profiles.
Reflecting the conference theme, the event opened with a panel addressing “Innovation in the Era of Volatility.” Panelists represented the supply network from fiber suppliers through to producers of branded products. They provided insights into the need for greater collaboration among all elements of the traditional supply chain, reframing it as an interconnected supply network or web. Greater cooperation is necessary because innovation is accelerating, and all points of the supply network must anticipate and respond to external pressures, including changing regulations, geopolitical events, trade and tariff disruptions, evolving consumer preferences, and social media (mis)information. Each panel participant also noted how artificial intelligence (AI) was being incorporated into their innovation processes. One panelist noted that AI can almost be considered as an employee, while another panelist shared the need to corroborate AI insights with the caution “Be careful, that employee may be a liar.”
The closing sessions of the conference provided a bookend to this opening discussion with in-depth dives into the topics of regulatory shifts and tariffs. In between, sessions focused on consumer pull and industry supply-side statistics, advances in manufacturing and converting technology, improvements in sustainable materials, the evolution of disinfecting wipes from the pre-COVID period through post-COVID, the rapidly changing world of packaging in an extended producer responsibility-driven world, and formulation topics.
During WOW, INDA recognized two industry giants for their lifetime of technical contributions to the industry. Tom Daugherty, retired from Procter & Gamble (P&G) and most recently The Nonwovens Institute (NWI) at NC State, was acknowledged for both the many nonwoven-based consumer products he helped develop while working at P&G, and for helping shape the next generation of nonwoven professionals during his tenure as NWI associate director. Honoree Carey Hobbs, retired from Hobbs Bonded Fibers, contributed to five decades of nonwoven innovation serving military, automotive, medical, industrial and craft industries. The Heirloom and Tuscany quilt batting developed by Hobbs has long been considered the gold standard for quilters and has touched many generations of crafters. Both Daugherty and Hobbs additionally served as INDA board and/or executive committee members during their careers.
The next installment of WOW will be held June 7-10, 2027, in Indianapolis.
