How Did Toilet Paper Break the Supply Chain
you know
just a year ago i never would have
believed
that this would become one of the most
sought after items in the nation
when the coronavirus pandemic hit panic
buying sent
everyone rushing to the store to grab
whatever was left on the shelf
only for us to realize that well maybe i
didn’t need
15 bottles of hand sanitizer or 400
rolls of toilet paper
but the problem was more serious than
bath tissue and disinfectants
the new york times ran the following
headline
but wait weren’t all the grocery stores
running low on these very products
something serious was happening in the
world
business insider wrote about bill bian a
potato farmer from sheridan montana
who threw away over 700 tons of potatoes
on his farm alone
bill had so many potatoes he needed a
bulldozer to get them all into the hole
where he buried his crops for the year
but as the new york times and many other
news outlets reported
we saw the same thing happening with
milk eggs and livestock
the united states government even hired
federal veterinarians to help the
process of
depopulating millions of pigs chicken
and cows so i gave mr buying a call to
figure out
what was happening he explained that as
soon as the schools and restaurants shut
down
the processing plants that farmers like
mr bain relied on
had to cut down on their own production
which in turn meant
they needed less from the farmers see
the problem was not that no one wanted
milk or eggs or beef
in fact these items were becoming harder
and harder to find at supermarkets and
stores
it’s the supply chain from the growers
to the supermarket that was disrupted
what happens in the standard supply
chain in america
is that one category is reliant on the
next to buy their products
a potato farmer like bill sells to a
distribution company
who then ships the products over to a
manufacturing plant
where the potatoes are made into french
fries or mashed potatoes
and these processed foods are then sold
to another distributor
who then ships the products over to end
buyers like schools
restaurants and supermarkets like
walmart
but the problem we faced back in spring
was caused by a single piece of this
system
being removed from the equation the
consumers of the product
schools restaurants and businesses were
not buying
since the product was not being consumed
distributors had no one to ship their
products to
manufacturers had no one to distribute
for them
and in the case of food farmers had no
one to process their crops
so while all this was happening
americans were losing their jobs and
couldn’t afford to feed their families
businesses shut down
and upwards of 57 million americans
were left without a salary so
many turn to food banks but soon enough
the food banks themselves run out of
food
how could it be that farmers were
throwing away tons of crops
and slaughtering millions of animals
while food banks were unable to feed
hungry americans
it was evident that we were dealing with
a supply chain issue
where farmers sold only to their
distributors and not to end buyers like
restaurants and schools
so i asked mr bayan what is stopping you
from selling your potatoes directly to
the food banks
his response where would i find enough
food banks to sell all my potatoes to
and he raised a valid point a local food
bank in sheridan montana
couldn’t possibly handle all 700 tons of
his potatoes
now while mr bayan did donate well over
one ton of potatoes to soup kitchens and
food banks
he just could not find enough people to
sell all his potatoes to
so we threw them away that right there
is the essence of the problem
but remember it’s not just about animals
and crops
on the personal protective equipment
front we needed a way to
defend ourselves from the virus
at the start of the pandemic many
brewing companies that typically make
alcoholic beverages
shifted their production to making hand
sanitizer because of the alcohol content
and disinfectants
heretic brewing company made that change
in spring 2020
but many small businesses like this one
were faced with a similar problem
let’s say a brewing company in a small
town in nebraska
produces hundreds of bottles of hand
sanitizer and decides to either donate
or sell these bottles
the brewing company produces more than
what their local town needs
now while this small town in nebraska
may have experienced
the luxury of having too much hand
sanitizer to go around
larger cities across the nation were
faced with harsh shortages
because their usual suppliers ran out of
the product
let’s take the example of a hospital in
san francisco that needs sanitizer
they look to their distributor who has
no supplier to fulfill that hospital’s
request
in nebraska there was no buyer in san
francisco there was no supplier
the issue was getting the hand sanitizer
from from the brewing company in
nebraska
to the hospital in san francisco
america needed a way for a supplier with
an
excess of valuable items to be able to
post their products on a public platform
so that buyers can get in direct contact
with them
so i had an idea for a website that
would target this very problem
i called it supply chain relief it was a
win-win for both the buyer and the
supplier
now when you type in supply chain
relief.org into your web browser
you’ll be taken to this forum here
buyers can either browse and scroll the
site
or they can hit supplies at the top of
the menu bar
where they can actually search for a
particular item
once they find the item they’re looking
for they will hit the box that says
contact information and just like that
they will have the email address and or
phone number
of the company that supplies that
product
it really is just that simple
i thought of this idea back in april
2020
but by november we had grown weary of
pandemic restrictions
in california businesses reopened
restaurants started offering outdoor
dining
movie theaters were back in operation
and in other parts of the country
restrictions were even more lacks the
hospitalizations continued to rise
we saw more than 200 000 new cases per
day
and even worse we reported a shocking 3
000 deaths per day
but this was not the only scary part
what made all of this worse
was that we still did not have a way to
get masks on the faces of doctors
nurses or even the general public
doctors and hospitals who risk their
lives for us
every day are being given a limited
number of masks
a nurse reported in november that she
still uses the same
five n95 masks that she was given back
in march
but this was not a problem in south
korea it was not a problem in new
zealand
it was a problem in the united states
the superpower country of the world
as i was programming supply chain relief
with covet in mind
i thought that perhaps a similar
solution could be used for the wildfires
that were
raging all over california now while the
state never entirely ran out of
firefighting equipment
continued natural disasters like
wildfires and earthquakes
could potentially disrupt the supply
chain
and then i thought what will america’s
system look like in a world of future
pandemics
or biochemical warfare hospitals will be
overcrowded with patients and once again
personal protective equipment will be at
a shortage
similarly some parts of the country and
even the world
will be better off when it comes to how
much product they will have stocked
the pandemic has highlighted this issue
but the ramifications of it
are not unique to kovit we are not
dealing with a coveted problem
we are dealing with a supply chain
problem
adding some kind of a bridge between
buyer and supplier
such as supply chain relief solves the
problem that we faced
bypasses the bottleneck we faced back in
spring 2020.
a potato farmer like bill not only can
avoid throwing away
700 tons of potatoes but can actually
sell them to buyers across the world
so while kovit still endangers the lives
of many fear not
now the hospitals and stores can get the
food the personal protective equipment
and yes the toilet paper that they need
we will no longer have to worry about
whether there will be enough to go
around
thank you