We all know about the great US toilet paper crisis in the early months of the virus pandemic starting in March of 2020.

Well that crisis is really over. As proof of that, in its Q1 earnings call this week, Kimberly-Clark said sales in its consumer-tissue segment, which includes toilet paper, Scott paper towels and Kleenex tissue, fell 14%  in Q1, as retail demand dropped as many consumer worked off supplies.

In a story on that trend, the Reuters news service published this chart, from consumer analytics firm NCSolutions, showing US toilet paper sales last year:

As can be seen, all the problems can be traced to a few weeks in March, when many consumers hoarded TP, sending sales temporaily up over 700%.

That took all the inventory out of the supply chain, creating severe shortages at retail for 2-3 months.

Now, we're back to more normal slow growing demand - which will be negative for a little while year over year due to the short pandemic demand spike and consumers using up at home stocks of TP.

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