Saw a couple of weeks ago, the manufacturers of toilet paper stating they had no intentions of increasing capacity to increase supply, because there's not any actual increase in demand. It's simply time-shifted to the left. The people panic buying toilet paper now, won't be buying toilet paper at all in 3 months. They just needed time for the supply chain to catch up and refill retail shelves from buffer stock.
But I have to say, here we are over 3 weeks later and there are still spot shortages around the country.
The truth is that a lot of people are working from home, so there actually IS increased demand for consumer toilet paper products. And there are massive supplies of toilet paper sitting unused in the bathrooms of this country's empty office buildings, in their storage closets, and in their vendors' warehouses.
Once again, just like with food, we see that the lack of flexibility between the Commercial supply chain, and the Consumer supply chain, resulting in spot shortages for various items on consumer retailer shelves, when in reality there is plenty of supply, it's just in the wrong place, and also not appropriately packaged for consumer purchase.
Anyway, just the thoughts of a longtime supply chain manager, on this Friday morning.