ARLINGTON, VA — Over the past year, supply chain challenges have led to product delays, rising costs, and inventory stock-outages that have impacted a wide range of industries and consumers across the United States. But port backlogs and skyrocketing ocean cargo prices aren’t only hitting store shelves and consumers’ pocketbooks, they are also threatening shortages of many of the ingredients essential for our health and everyday lives.
While some are claiming a victory lap on solving the supply chain crisis, recent data collected from National Association of Chemical Distributors (NACD) members show most have not seen the ongoing shipping crisis improve. If anything, it’s gotten worse, with the majority of survey respondents continuing to experience stock outages, face shipping delays of 11 days or longer on average, and have lost revenue due to delays or inability to book transit. Some experts say it could be years before we extricate ourselves from the current crisis.