Kimberly-Clark Glove Supply Remains Strong Despite Market Changes

ROSWELL, Ga. — Kimberly-Clark Healthcare, the market leader in nitrile exam gloves, announced  its commitment and preparedness to meet its customers’ glove demand despite the recent notification from China-based Hong Ray Enterprises, the world’s largest manufacturer of vinyl gloves, of their production shortfalls, shipping delays and price increases.

“With the market changing over the past several months, we ramped up our production of Sterling Nitrile Exam Gloves in October of 2007 as one of many safeguards to ensure we could supply a superior alternative to vinyl and latex gloves should predictions of production shortfalls hold true,” said John Dodd, vice president of global healthcare product supply. “We will continue to invest in our nitrile glove processes to make certain that we can support our customers in what has become a very volatile global market.”

Kimberly-Clark Healthcare reaffirmed that its current supply of nitrile gloves, a higher performing alternative to vinyl, are well-stocked and available. Kimberly-Clark Healthcare’s market-leading Sterling Nitrile and Purple Nitrile Exam Gloves, which are manufactured at two Kimberly-Clark-owned facilities in Thailand, are not subject to the shortages or quality concerns of the heavily outsourced vinyl glove market.

“Kimberly-Clark Healthcare has made a significant investment in quality by maintaining direct control of manufacturing for more than 95 percent of our gloves. Our exam gloves already exceed the new Food and Drug Administration quality requirements, which take effect in December,” said John Amat, vice president of global sales and marketing. “We are well positioned to meet our customers’ orders with our current inventory of nitrile gloves, which will help us avert any potential supply problems for our healthcare customers.”

To ensure that normal shipping patterns continue for its current vinyl customers, Kimberly-Clark Healthcare’s supply team is monitoring inventory levels daily and working closely with distributors to ensure proper fulfillment of orders for its vinyl exam glove portfolio. Moving forward, Kimberly-Clark Healthcare will not take on new vinyl accounts until market conditions improve.

As the exam glove market continues to see unprecedented costs of all input materials, Kimberly-Clark Healthcare is examining market pricing options necessary to offset a portion of these rapidly escalating costs.

Source: Kimberly-Clark Healthcare