P&G said in its most recent earnings call that it was still having trouble sourcing raw materials for feminine care products, getting them to the places that need them, and getting products on trucks to retailers. The startup TOP The Organic Project makes tampons in Europe, and co-founder and CEO Thyme Sullivan says the cost of getting its tampons to the U.S. is up 300% from last year. The company started flying, rather than shipping, the biodegradable wrappers for its feminine care products from Italy because shipping has become so difficult and expensive.
Edgewell Personal Care experienced a severe staff shortage at its Dover facility with both employees and vendors, the company says. Tampons are Class II medical devices, which means that because of quality control regulations, companies can’t put just anybody on the assembly line, so production lagged demand. And the raw materials that go into tampons—cotton, rayon, and sometimes pulp and plastic for applicators—have been some of the most in-demand raw materials throughout the pandemic as they’ve gone into medical products like personal protection equipment. As demand soared, supply shrank.
Rayon is a by-product of cotton, a finicky crop, and this is the third straight year that demand for cotton has exceeded production, says Sheng Lu, a professor in the Department of Fashion and Apparel Studies at the University of Delaware. In April, the raw price of cotton was 71% higher than it was the previous year.
It's a good article: read the rest --
https://time.com/6184644/tampon-shortage-supply-chain/
Supply chain disruptions continue to hinder us from getting back to "the way it was". Of course, there's a new "normal" coming -- and no one really knows what it's going to look like.
Probably something like this:
Grace & Peace & Love to you all -
Matt