If you're beginning to run low on Clorox wipes, the company's chairman and CEO says unprecedented demand means you might not be able to restock until summer.
According to an interview with Yahoo Finance, Clorox CEO Benno Dorer says it will be "touch and go" for stores to keep their shelves stocked with the ubiquitous disinfectant wipes. While the company has expanded its production capacity by 40%, they still can't keep the popular items from being snapped up by consumers across the United States.
“So if you go to stores, we're shipping to our stores every single day. But what we're shipping is pretty much scooped up right away. So it's gone after a few minutes,” Dorer explained. “Clearly there's an unprecedented demand spike for some of our products, in particular wipes. We've seen spikes of up to 500% in terms of demand and no supply chain in our industry is built to satisfy that demand increase in a short period of time.”
Disinfectant products such as wipes, hand sanitizer, bleach and alcohol have flown off the shelves as people try to keep their home free from COVID-19. Clorox factories are moving at full speed to meet demand, but the supply chain for wipes may not stabilize until the summer, Dorer suggests in the interview. He says they've activated third-party suppliers to help meet demand as well as find new ways to speed up production.
“And we think that there's going to be substantial improvement this summer,” he said. “It's going to be touch and go until then, unfortunately, but help is on the way and I think should ease up in the next few months.”
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