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Georgia Pacific is making some predictions on how the COVID-19 pandemic will impact its supply chain. Those predictions were announced by company spokesperson, Eric Abercrombie, and are as follows:

"Given the current situation surrounding the coronavirus/COVID-19, and just cold and flu season in general, we anticipate more hand washing – especially given how everyone is focused on and talking about good hand hygiene and preventing the spread of germs. 

We do expect some 'away from home' activity to decline as business travel and vacation plans change, along with companies encouraging employees to work from home when it makes sense. However, in recent weeks we have seen a 10 time increase in demand with sanitizer products.

For our retail business, we have seen a significant increase in orders over the last several weeks. As it relates to toilet paper, these increases have been as high as two times our normal demand. 

We are quickly responding to our customers needs by expediting product that optimizes our existing inventory, increasing production, and utilizing a managed distribution process to smartly manage through this unusual period.   

Based on IRI panel data, along with the United States Census, the average U.S. household (2.6 people) uses 409 equivalized regular rolls per year. Using our own calculations, staying at home 24/7 would result in ~140% increase vs. average daily usage.  Therefore, to last approximately two weeks, a two-person household would need ~9 double rolls, or ~5 mega rolls. 

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve seen significant demand pull, specifically in retail (Tissue and Towel) and Sanitizers (GP PRO), and we expect to see those trends continue for the time being. As a company, we have teams working closely together (category, sales, operations, transportation and supply chain) to deliver as much product as we possibly can. In addition, we have been working with key suppliers to ensure we have enough packaging supplies to maximize the quantity of product we can deliver to customers. 

Inventory levels across our system remain healthy and we are working hard to maximize the number of deliveries we can load and ship out of our facilities – you can just load and unload so fast. Last week our mills and regional distribution centers managed to ship out ~120% of normal capacity. We also are working with customers to have direct shipments when possible to reduce distribution time. We currently don’t have any issues with carrier capacity (trucks and trailers) to ship."