These Menstruation Startups Offer Solutions To Tampon Shortage

Seven years ago, then-18-year-old Claire Coder found herself at a corporate event when she began her period. She didn’t have a tampon. She was lucky enough to find a dispenser in the women’s room — but it charged a quarter.

“If toilet paper is offered for free, why aren’t tampons and pads?” Coder recalled asking herself. “At that moment, bloody underwear and all, I knew that I wanted to dedicate my life to ensuring everyone has access to period products.”

In 2016, Coder founded Aunt Flow to provide period-product dispensers. They’re now in over 23,000 rest rooms across the U.S., U.K. and Canada, in businesses such as Netflix and Viacom and in schools like Princeton University.

More than 34 million Americans use menstrual products, and many of those people have had a difficult time the past few months finding tampons and related items amid a nationwide shortage. According to Instacart, only 67% of shoppers were able to find supplies on store shelves as of June 19, the lowest percentage since global supply chains mostly came to a halt in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. As major manufacturers like Procter & Gamble, which controls nearly 50% of the period product market, grapple with finding enough raw materials like cotton and plastic, three startups offer alternatives to help meet demand.

The three — Aunt Flow, Cora and August — have been able to continue sourcing their materials.

Aunt Flow, which has received $11.5 million in seed money and two funding rounds, offers organic pads and tampons. Coder said the Columbus, Ohio-based company has experienced a bump in demand since the shortage began and has been offering its products online during the tampon scarcity. It also has a charitable side. For every ten period products sold, Aunt Flow donates one to non-profits. Last year, the company donated over 1.6 million products.

Cora, founded in 2016, also felt a spike in orders — an uptick of 250% on Amazon in one week this month and as much as 125% in stores like Target in a ten-day period in mid-June, according to Dana Cohen, the company’s chief marketing officer.

“There’s some natural growth that we’ve had,” Cohen said, “but the spike is probably due to consumers stocking up because they’ve heard about shortages.”

Over the years, Cora has expanded its product line to include menstrual discs, period underwear, tampons, pads and cups. It has raised $28.8 million in seed investments and three funding rounds. Revenue has grown 40% so far this year over 2021.

Reusable sanitary products like menstrual cups are projected to become more popular because of their sustainability and cost effectiveness. According to the IBIS World 2022 Industry Report, feminine products account for 22% of the sanitary papers industry, which also includes facial tissues, toilet paper and incontinence products.

Nadya Okamoto had firsthand experience of the need for period products in schools. In 2014, when she was just 16, Okamoto founded PERIOD, a startup to expand access to period supplies and dispel period stigmas — negative perceptions of the menstrual cycle.

As a recent Harvard graduate, Okamoto cofounded another menstrual-focused startup, August. Last year, August raised a pre-seed round of $2 million and is currently planning to close its seed round.

August was able to stay stocked despite the shortage, according to Okamoto. “In many ways, we’ve been prepared for this because we’ve never had high expectations for the global supply chain,” she said. “We’ve been prepared for any sort of shortages because we started it in the midst of a global pandemic. So we have a responsibility to have a lot of buffers to make sure that we stay stocked.”

Any shortage of plastic, a material used to make most tampons, doesn’t affect August because its products are plastic-free, biodegradable and water soluble.

In its first year, the company has donated 90,000 pads, accrued over 30,000 customers and has been used in 3,000 cities and towns across the U.S. The company also covers the sales tax for tampons in the states that charge it. Currently, 24 do, though expanding menstrual products in schools is part of a growing trend. On Monday, Hawaii joined eight other states to pass legislation requiring period products to be free in public schools.

“Social enterprise is something I really believe in,” Okamoto said. “I believe that brands have a fundamental opportunity and responsibility to shape period stigma.”