e rch 16, 202041w m h can
we buy?
○ Anneliese Bischof was on a business trip in
Thailand in the second week of January when
conversations with Chinese colleagues about a new
virus spreading across the region made her realize a
major outbreak might be occurring. For Bischof, the
business director of disinfection at German chemi-
cals company Lanxess AG, this was initially no cause
for alarm. After all, she and her team had seen spikes
in viral infections before, like the African swine
fever that swept across the Asia-Pacific region last
year, driving up demand for the company’s Virkon
industrial-strength disinfectant.
It was only when Bischof returned to Germany
that she realized this time was different. Back
home in Cologne, the phones in her department
started ringing off the hook. The inquiries were
from nations that had never previously been on
the Lanxess corporate map. “We had an off-the-
charts number of calls coming in,” says Bischof, who
works at the company’s Material Protection unit,
which took over the Virkon brand of disinfectants
a few years ago with the $230 million purchase of a
biocide business from Delaware-based Chemours
Co. “Places like Trinidad and Tobago, all kinds of
small countries that for the majority of our business
wouldn’t have been on our radar. That’s when we
really started noticing the bomb dropping.”
Virkon, a powder dissolved in water and then
sprayed on surfaces, kills viruses quickly, often in
minutes. That sets it apart from other agents that
may take a full hour to eliminate them, Bischof says.
“You wouldn’t want to soak or spray a desk and let it
sit for 60 minutes if you want to disinfect it.”
The German company isn’t alone in having to
scramble to meet demand for products that have
become hot sellers in the wake of the coronavirus
outbreak. Even before the spread of Covid-19 out-
side of China accelerated, American shoppers
were stocking up on items such as medical masks,
hand sanitizers, and thermometers—in the week
through Jan. 25, sales of masks were up 428% from
the same period last year, according to Nielsen
data. And companies such as Gojo Industries
Inc., which sells Purell hand sanitizer, kicked into
high gear after demand for disinfectant hand gels
spiked 1,400% from December to January, accord-
ing to Adobe Analytics.
Manufacturers say the current stockpiling is
more frenzied than that which occurs before a nat-
ural disaster. “I’m from Florida, so when it’s hurri-
cane season you see people with the same kind of
behavior or pretty similar,” says Rick McLeod, vice
president of product supply for Procter & Gamble
Co.’s family care unit—home of the coveted Charmin
and Bounty brands. “What’s different here is that it’s
not as concentrated as you would see in a hurricane
response—it’s obviously more widespread.”
Indeed, retailers such as Target, Kroger, and
Tesco in the U.K. are limiting certain purchases.
Costco Wholesale Corp. is struggling to keep items
in stock, Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti
told analysts, saying the buying frenzy has been
“a little bit crazy.” In France, shoppers snapped up
pasta, rice, ready-cooked meals, and toilet paper,
says Michel-Édouard Leclerc, chairman of super-
market chain E.Leclerc. “Everyone rushed like
they had lived through a war, which is incredible,
because three-quarters of the people who came to
stock up have never known war.”
With demand soaring, Lanxess began air-
freighting Virkon to China instead of shipping
it—getting it to customers within a week, rather
than 30 to 45 days. Lanxess also installed a sec-
ond shift, doubled capacity at the factory mak-
ing Virkon in Sudbury, England, and is leaning on
other European production sites. Bischof predicts
sales will remain high for the foreseeable future.
“Demand is here to stay at least for this year, if not
going forward,” she says. “The topic of disinfection
is present in people’s minds now.” �Andrew Noel,
with Gerald Porter Jr. and Thomas Buckley“We had an
off-the-charts
number
of calls
coming in”▲ Shoppers for hand
sanitizer at a Target
store in New York were
met with empty shelves
and purchase limits