Clorox Is Making More Disinfecting Wipes Than Ever Before, But High Demand Still Causing Shortage

Disinfectant wipes are potentially the biggest hot commodity as the COVID-19 Pandemic continues, with consumers around the world seeking products to help keep their homes clean and to kill the virus if it happens to be on any surfaces. However, the high demand for products has led to a shortage in stores that continue to be sold out, despite companies like Clorox producing the highest volume they ever have.

In an interview on “Good Morning America,” Clorox CEO-elect Linda Rendle told Robin Roberts that the company was ramping up production and was hoping to fill shelves with wipes again, even after her predecessor, current CEO Benno Dorer, said that the company likely wouldn’t be able to keep up with the demand for a while.

“We are making wipes in record numbers and shipping them to stores in record numbers,” Rendle said.

“In terms of wipes, we are making more disinfectant products than we ever had before,” she added. “Since January, we’ve been able to make 100 million more disinfecting products than we ever had before. That’s a 50 percent increase, and specific to wipes, we are making nearly 1 million packages of wipes every single day and shipping them to stores.”

Her remarks come roughly one week after Dorer told Reuters that because of how complex it is to make the wipes and the demand increasing six-fold, that consumers likely wouldn’t see a full restock on wipes until at least 2021.

Clorox isn’t the only company making wipes to see an increase in demand and diminished supply. Lysol, which also makes the popular products, as well as disinfectant sprays, have also been facing a shortage when it comes to products hitting store shelves and becoming available to consumers.

In a statement to CNN back in April, Reckitt Benckiser Group, which manufactures Lysol wipes, stated they were seeing an unprecedented demand, but couldn’t say when customers would start to see products back on store shelves.

“Demand remains very high and products are selling very quickly when re-stocked, so we recognize that it may be difficult to locate some specific products our consumers may be looking for,” they said at the time. “We apologize for this inconvenience and appreciate your patience & understanding while we work with retailers to restock products as quick as possible.”

Sales of cleaners have increased significantly since the start of the pandemic, and especially after Stay-at-Home orders went into effect in March. According to Nielsen research, in March and April alone, the sales of aerosol disinfectants jumped 230.5% and multipurpose cleaners jumped 109.1%.