Are antiviral tissues worth the extra cost?
By Ryan Mallough - Monday, January 28, 2013 - 0 Comments
Kleenex ‘sneeze shield’ tissues cost 12 times as much as a regular box
Flu season is a miserable time of dizzying nausea and hacking coughs for millions across North America. But for some companies, it’s also an opportune time for sales.
Kimberly-Clark, the maker of Kleenex brand tissues, has seen a net jump in its stock price in nine of the past 12 flu seasons (October-March), and is on pace to do it again this year. Its stock sits at $86.33 per share, up from $85.99 in October with peak flu season just around the corner.
Kleenex controls roughly 45 per cent of the approximately $1.5-billion tissue market, but saw its share slip last year as store brands made small gains. Recently, Kleenex has made a marketing push for what it calls its “sneeze shield” tissues, which are coated to prevent mucus from getting to the hands, and its antiviral tissues. These anti-flu tissues don’t come cheap. Sneeze shield tissues cost $3.99 for a box of 120. The antiviral tissues are $4.29 for a box of 68, or an incredible 12 times the cost of a run-of-the-mill box of Royale tissues at $0.69 for a box of 132. Continue…
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Shaking all over?
By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 21, 2010 at 12:30 PM - 1 Comment
NO HANDSHAKE for the Dalai Lamai in Memphis; the mayor greeted him with a fist bump
There is a great deal of good news in Ottawa’s recent end-of-year report on the H1N1 flu. But would you want to shake on it?
According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, most regions in the country now report either sporadic or no evidence of H1N1. Hospitalizations have been falling sharply since mid-November and the flu threat appears to be in rapid decline in Canada, as well as the rest of the world. While any death from disease is a tragedy, the toll of the flu seems substantially less than the worst-case scenarios initially presented. Whether this is due to overstated risks or sound public health management is unclear. What is obvious, however, is that the most significant impact of last year’s H1N1 flu scare is the threat it still poses to one of our oldest and most recognized public customs—shaking hands.
