#Prices for household staples like diapers, detergent to surge

Household staples from diapers to tampons are poised to hit consumers with sticker shock this fall, even as the US slowly shakes off its pandemic woes.

Procter & Gamble — the maker of Tide detergent, Pampers diapers and Gillette razors — said Tuesday it plans to raise prices on a slew of products by September, citing the rising cost of raw materials and shipping.

The price increases will affect baby products, adult diapers and feminine-care brands and will be in a percentage in the mid- to high-single-digits, the company said.

The announcement comes weeks after rival Kimberly-Clark, which 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 surging costs for raw materials like wood pulp and resin.

Prices are rising in the food aisle as well, with shortages causing bizarre demand for products like Grape-Nuts cereal, which started selling on the black market for as much as $100 a box during the dark days of the pandemic.

Post, the Minnesota company that makes the crunchy, high-fiber cereal, said in March it was back at full capacity and cited production glitches related to skyrocketing pandemic demand for the product.

Cheerios maker General Mills is ticking up prices on major brands, as is Hormel Foods Corp., which makes Jennie-O ground turkey and Skippy peanut butter. J.M. Smucker Co. has already boosted the price of Jif peanut butter and is considering hikes on its pet products, according to reports.

Paper products are going up because of a shortage in pulp and polymer resins, while other products are becoming more expensive because of increased shipping and transportation costs due to the pandemic, manufacturers said.

The last time paper product prices went up significantly 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, jumped by 2.6 percent in the year ended in March — or the biggest 12-month increase since August 2018, according to government data.

“It’s a different situation, as everywhere in the world countries are in very different places as far as coming out of the pandemic,” Procter & Gamble’s chief operating officer, Jon Moeller, told the Wall Street Journal. “There is very strong consumption across the board.”