Household supplies, from laundry detergent to diapers, are poised to hit consumers with sticker shocks this fall, even as the US is slowly shaking off the pandemic woes.
Procter & Gamble – the maker of Tide laundry detergent, Pampers diapers and Gillette razors – said on Tuesday that it plans to increase prices for a slew of products by September, citing rising raw material and shipping costs.
The announcement comes weeks after rival Kimberly-Clark, who makes Scott toilet paper and Huggies diapers, announced mid-to-high single-digit price hikes by June.
Procter & Gamble blamed its price increases on the “impact of rising commodity prices,” including rising costs for raw materials such as wood pulp and resin.
Prices are also on the food path, with shortages causing bizarre demand for products like Grape-Nuts cereals, which sold for as much as $ 100 a box on the black market during the dark days of the pandemic.
Post, the Minnesota company that makes the fiber-rich, crunchy cereal, said in March that it was back at full capacity, citing production disruptions linked to skyrocketing demand for the product.
Cheerios maker General Mills is pushing up the prices of major brands, as does Hormel Foods Corp., which makes Jennie-O ground turkey and Skippy peanut butter. JM Smucker Co. has already raised the price of Jif peanut butter and is considering increases in its pet products, according to reports.
Paper products are going up due to a shortage of pulp and polymer resins, while other products are getting more expensive due to increased shipping and transportation costs due to the pandemic, manufacturers said.
The last time paper product prices soared was in 2018, when there was a similar run on pulp, experts said.
The consumer price index, which measures what consumers pay for most goods, rose 2.6 percent in the year ending March – or the biggest 12-month increase since August 2018, according to government data.
“It’s a different situation, because all over the world countries are in very different places as far as they come out of the pandemic,” Jon Moeller, chief operating officer of Procter & Gamble, told The Wall Street Journal. “There is very strong consumption across the board.”