Oh blow! Kleenex cuts back on tissues just in time for sniff le season

KLEENEX tissues are the latest consumer favourite to be hit by shrinking pack sizes.

The number of tissues in a Kleenex Balsam box has fallen 10 per cent with little fanfare other than a cursory note in the small print – while the price has remained the same.

It emerged over the summer that the brand’s owner also reduced the size of Andrex toilet rolls from 221 sheets to 200.

The tissue switch comes just in time for the onset of the autumn chill.

But Texas-based consumer goods giant Kimberly-Clark said: ‘This is the first time we have reduced the number of sheets in our Kleenex range since 2011, despite investment in our brands.’

The company blamed the rising price of raw material, adding that the cost of ‘virgin fibre’ for tissue paper had risen by 15 per cent to $950 (£750) a ton over the past year.

Jamie Cartwright, of law firm Charles Russell Speechlys, said companies were not obliged to advertise changes and could fulfil legal obligations by specifying pack sizes in small print.

But he added: ‘Whether they have a moral duty – that is another question.’

A study by The Mail on Sunday revealed some tissues can be 12 times more costly than of their rivals, yet a test of tissues across a range of qualities found that it was difficult to notice a difference.

US company Kimberly-Clark has cut the number of tissues in its Kleenex Balsam boxes from 80 to 72. It made the change with little fanfare other than a 2mm-high reference on the cartons, inset, which many shoppers will not have noticed.