PRICE INCREASES FOR PAPER PRODUCTS ON THE WAY
Consumers will soon pay more for paper towels and bathroom tissue as Kimberly-Clark Corp. announced this week it will increase the prices of many of its household products.
Kimberly-Clark said in a release the price increases are “necessary to help offset significant commodity cost inflation.”
Kimberly-Clark is based in Dallas and is a major employer in New Milford, where about 350 work at a manufacturing facility. Its portfolio includes brands such as Huggies, Kleenex, Scot, Cottonelle, Depend, GoodNites and Pull-Ups.
The price increases will affect consumers in the U.S. and Canada and be across the majority of its products. Cost increases will be in the mid to high single digits, the company announced, and mostly affect Cottonelle and Scott 1000 bathroom tissue, Kleenex facial tissue, Viva paper towels, Huggies diapers, Pull-Ups training pants and GoodNites youth pants.
The increases on Cottonelle bathroom tissue and Viva paper towels will happen late this year and the remaining increases will take place in early 2019.
In June, the company said it expected full-year commodity inflation to be between $675 million and $775 million, double its expectations at the beginning of the year.
Thomas Falk, chairman and CEO of Kimberly-Clark, hinted at the move in late July when the company announced its secondquarter earnings.
“We are … reducing our earnings outlook because of significantly higher commodity costs and the recent weakening of most foreign currencies. Given these headwinds, we will continue to aggressively manage costs and evaluate further opportunities to increase net selling prices.”
In January, Kimberly-Clark announced a global restructuring program that sought to reduce costs that would “broadly impact all of the company's business segments and organizations in each major geography.”
The rising costs of commodities, such as paper pulp, have forced other companies, including Colgate-Palmolive and Proctor & Gamble, to make similar announcements regarding the price of consumer goods.