Over the past few months we’ve all had to adjust to a “new normal” in the wake of COVID-19. Restaurants, food service industries, and medical professionals are being hit particularly hard. And they will continue to need personal protective equipment, like nitrile gloves. The problem is, prices for PPE are increasing, and shortages are becoming quite widespread. It’s a classic supply and demand scenario. Then, nitrile gloves shortages keep popping up, causing prices to increase rapidly.
Lack of manufacturers
The reason is because the countries where nitrile gloves are manufactured were forced to shut down production due to COVID-19 quarantines. For instance, China produces virtually all of the world’s disposable gloves, which are widely used in healthcare. With factories shut for an extended period, the production of nitrile gloves virtually stopped. While factories are coming back on line, the ramp-up slow. Moreover, China sold a lot of nitrile gloves for their own citizen, but limiting exports.
Beside, it is not easy to scale up the glove production industry. Which means it will likely take some time before material suppliers and manufacturers can find ways to catch up with the sudden influx of demand. As we can see, this global pandemic are making a serious global situation.
At the very same time, other nitrile gloves producing nations Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia were hit with the virus. As demand surged, lockdowns cut production and glove factories are also dealing raw material and packaging delays. You can also expect intermittent shortages. Surging demand coupled with production cuts is the perfect recipe for shortages. Many governments are minimizing exports on gloves, and to ensure that they can fulfill domestic needs first. And with shortages come rising prices.
High demand
The reopening of the U.S. and other economies could make shortages worse. Since that will create more demand due to heightened concerns about hygiene and safety. This also lead to increase glove use in healthcare and foodservice. We are also seeing many customer use a lot of nitrile gloves. This mean gloves are becoming a bigger part of our everyday lives.
One piece of advice that could prove helpful in these times of shortages, is to be flexible. Nitrile gloves are all adequate disposable glove options. So you may need to be willing to use a glove material you typically wouldn’t depending on availability.
