Inflation is taking away one more item from Canadian shelves. The Kleenex brand is removing itself from the shelves.
Only The Kleenex Tissue
While the brand is only removing their facial tissue from shelves in Canada that is the most important product that we use from that brand. Kimberly Clark is the manufacturer of the brand and other products like Cottonelle, Huggies, Poise, and Depend.
They will no longer make the tissue in Canada or sell it. They shared the shocking message on the Canadian website. “Goodbyes are never easy,” they open the brief statement.
“Thank you so much for your loyalty to our Kleenex ® brand facial tissues for the past few decades. We appreciate you allowing us in your households and want you to know how difficult it was for us to end our sales in Canada.”
They noted that they will stop all alerts and pointed out the products that will be sticking around. “Please Note: If you had subscribed to receive Pollen Pal alerts via email or SMS, there will be no further alerts sent to you. We look forward to continuing to provide you better care through our Kleenex® brand hand towels, and other Kimberly-Clark brands including Cottonelle®, U by Kotex®, Poise®, Depend®, Huggies®, Pull-Ups® and Goodnites®.”
Kimberly-Clark Spoke Out
Kimberly-Clark’s Canadian vice president released A Statement. “We have been operating in a highly constrained supply environment, and despite our best efforts we have been faced with some unique complexities on the Kleenex business.”
They continued, “This decision is one that will allow us to shift our resources to better focus on other brands in Canada and meet the needs of our consumers with continued innovation and value.”
They wrapped up their statement writing, “The decision was incredibly difficult for us to make, and we appreciate consumers allowing us into their homes over the decades, and to our retail partners for their support.”
Who Else Is Leaving
As we mentioned earlier, a few other brands have high-tailed it out of Canada in recent months. In late 2022 Bugles didn’t even announce, they just disappeared off shelves. When bombarded with messages from Canadian’s seeking answer, they meticulously replied saying they hoped Canadians “can find a tasty substitute elsewhere.”
For a little while, Asian grocers had some on their shelves but eventually, some began to announce that they were dwindling down, one grocery store in Alberta said, “We only have one bag left.”
Skippy divorced the Canadians as well. The sticky, nutty, tasty treat said the pricing situation was the reason why.
Canada Is Too Expensive?
According to Skippy’s owner, U.S. brand Hormel Foods, they had to go because of factors like competition and pricing that hurt the profits. “It was an incredibly difficult decision to withdraw Skippy peanut butter from the Canadian market,” said spokesperson Brian Olson exclusively to CBC.
A professor at Dalhousie University in Canada chalked it up to the “small” country. Sylvain Charlebois says, ‘We’re a vast country with only 36 million people. The distribution costs are really high.” The “economics” don’t “make sense”.