February 2, 2008

  • As if the price of gas isn't bad enough, what's up with paper towels?

    Has anyone noticed that over the last week or two the price of paper towels has increased significantly?  My preferred p/t is Visa's select-a-size, which has been $1.64 at SuperTarget for ages now.

    All of a sudden it jumped to $1.99.   An increase of 20%!     

    That same roll is over $2 at Tom Thumb, and all paper towel prices have risen.

    I don't get it.  What's driving the price of paper towels?  e-browlift

Comments (15)

  • Probably gas prices -- transportation costs are going up so the price of the products will have to rise to cover that.

  • Wouldn't that pretty much be an across-the-board increase, though?

    I haven't noticed everything else going up 20% (thank goodness).

  • I can't stand anymore prices going up.  Starbucks lowered their prices by us.  I think it is God just giving Steve and I an occasional treat. 

  • And you deserve it, sweetie!

    So...what do you usually get? Decaf mocha cappuccino or something like that?

  • I've never heard of Visa t/p or Tom Thumb.   

  • Ah. Well, Tom Thumb is a business unit (learned that term from my son, Jonathan, last week) of Safeway, Inc.

    And Visa paper towels are a bit pricey but the most cloth-like of all the p/t brands, at least so far as I know. I had a harder time justifying the price until they came out with the select-a-size style.

  • Well I don't think you'd see an automatic, across the board jump, but more of a domino effect, for lack of a better description.

    Here's an example of what I'm thinking about.  Feed prices (the grains we buy for the animals) went up nearly 50% early in the winter because weather across the nation last year was so bad -- drought in some places, flood in others -- so that there was only one harvest where there's normally two.  Yesterday when Mike was over at the Amish place where we buy farm supplies, he noticed that the price of pullets (young laying hens) has gone up from $4 to $5.  I'm pretty sure this reflects the increase in feed cost -- it simply costs the farmer more to raise the chickens so he has to sell them for more.

    I really don't know what's going on with paper towels to influence their price.  I was just pointing out that, considering that nearly everything we consume is shipped in from some place far away, when the price of oil goes up, the cost of transportation (to say nothing of manufacturing) will go up, too.  But it's only normal for some things to be affected sooner than others.

    HTH

  • BTW, I prefer Bounty Select-a-Size, but is Visa really in the paper towel business nowadays?  Talk about diversifying.

    I wonder if the Viva paper towel people are worried about the name being so similar to their own?

    *wink wink*

  • Oh. Right.

    Viva. [blushing like a beet]

  • I priced it at our Meijer grocery store at $13.20 for 8 rolls, which comes to 1.65 per roll. Have you tried looking for it in bulk?

  • This reminds me of when we used to buy the whole wheat saltines, the Krispy kind. They used to be under a dollar a box, but the price kept rising and rising until I finally decided we really didn't need to munch those anymore.  Now when we much, we stick to popcorn.

  • Yes, and I sometimes do, but I don't really have anywhere to store bulk items so they tend to sit out on the floor. If that's the way the price is going to carry on, though, that's what I'll do.

  • I guess some things have to go up first, but paper towels are a mystery. I mean, transportation costs? Those things weigh nothing! How is it that paper towels go up faster than canned goods? Both require oil to produce, but canned goods are a LOT heavier.

  • Maybe the wretched winter weather in the Northwest and northern California? Isn't that where the trees are which provide the wood pulp to make the paper? Perhaps that's caused the price of wood pulp to increase?

    Just guessing!

  • Anne, beets don't blush. That reminds me - I was going to try and find a recipe for Borscht. For Lizzy's boyfriend, Fede. Remember he's Moldavian?

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