Here we are, already in the second quarter of 2021. Time sure does fly. How’s your year going?
The disposable glove market is chugging along, doing its best to overcome challenges. Whether it’s capacity limitations or supply chain issues or elevated pricing, distributors have a lot to deal with in procuring gloves for their customers.
Spring is here, and summer is just around the corner. COVID vaccinations are largely going well. Despite a potential fourth surge of coronavirus infections, and troubling developments in such places as Illinois and Michigan, optimism over reopening society is becoming more common.
Those in the business of disposable gloves should note that even with this encouraging news, the need for personal protective equipment is not going away.
Photo courtesy USAToday/via YouTube
If you are dependent on global shipping, you can breathe a bit easier. On Monday, March 29, the giant container ship Ever Given was set free.
After nearly a week of being stuck in the Suez Canal, blocking shipping traffic in both directions, the 1,312-foot vessel finally was “successfully refloated.” Crews that had worked around the clock got help from a few extra inches of tidal flow to move the Ever Given back to the center of the canal.
The biggest vaccination campaign in history is under way. More than 535 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine have been administered across 141 countries, according to data collected by Bloomberg. The latest rate was roughly 14.5 million doses a day.
In the U.S., more Americans have received at least one dose than have tested positive for the virus since the pandemic began. To date, 143 million doses have been administered. In the last week, an average of 2.71 million doses a day were distributed, and at least 20 states have expanded vaccinations to all adults.
Photo courtesy Bloomberg Markets and Finance/via YouTube
In recent weeks we’ve written about the supply chain crises of container ships backed up outside West Coast ports, waiting to be unloaded, and the consequent logistics challenges of getting products to the U.S. The situation is causing massive delays for goods from furniture to electronics to Pelotons.
As you certainly have noticed if you’ve looked at cable TV or internet news in the last few days, things just got a whole lot worse.
If you are in the disposable glove business, you have been living the reality of higher prices for nearly a year. We’ve outlined the reasons for this more than a few times in this space.
Over the last year, there has been a lot of speculation about market dynamics. Frustratingly, 2021 is shaping up to be another year of short supply, high demand, and uncomfortable prices. Supply chains will be seriously put to the test. And customers are not happy about it.
A lot of factors impact disposable glove prices, from raw materials to labor to supply and demand to shipping and transportation. Over the last year, they have all contributed to glove prices rising while availability suffers.
At the moment, nothing is putting more pressure on the market than major disruptions to the global supply chain. And the crisis reaches far beyond disposable gloves.
What standards apply to disposable exam-grade gloves? How do you know if the gloves you are wearing are safe? These are among the most frequent questions we get from distributors and end-users alike.
What is the difference between exam- and industrial-grade gloves?
Expressed as simply as possible: Exam- and industrial-grade gloves vary in quality, specifically in the number of manufacturing defects per batch of gloves. But there is a lot more nuance to it than one might think.
Has it really been almost a year since the U.S. and a good portion of the planet went into quarantine?
Hard to believe. Here at AMMEX, we shut down the home office on March 17, 2020. Most of us have worked from home since.
You may have noticed in the marketplace that the look of AMMEX products has changed. We talked about it in an earlier post.
We understand that a change in packaging may be confusing. Some people have expressed concern that the change means a different glove.
