WEBVTT - There’s More Lysol Than Ever, But It’s Not Enough for the U.S. 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:02.200 Hi, I'm Carol Masser. Let's get to one of the 0:00:02.240 --> 0:00:06.000 feature stories in Bloomberg Business Week magazine this week. First 0:00:06.040 --> 0:00:09.720 of all, it's about Lysol. In fact, Lisol works hance 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:14.600 americans insatiable demand for the coronavirus neutralizing disinfectant. The level 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:16.920 of panic buying this year has been on par with 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:21.000 purchases of toilet paper and rice. Most of America's supply 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:24.360 comes from a New Jersey factory where every day at 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:28.240 least three tanker cars of ethanol arrived by train, each 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:32.320 caring about thirty thousand gallons. The plant can produce seven 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:35.400 eight hundred cans of lysol a minute, all of them 0:00:35.479 --> 0:00:38.400 quickly bought and used or hoarded by Americans desperate to 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:41.960 keep their stuff fires free. Record. Ben Keiser Group PLC, 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:45.519 Lysol's corporate parent, says that by year end it will 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:48.840 be producing thirty five million cans of lysol in North 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:52.680 America each month, more than triple its pre COVID nineteen peak, 0:00:52.960 --> 0:00:55.200 and enough to put a can in most American households 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:58.200 before winter is over. So far, Lysol sales are up 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:01.720 more than seventy this year, Ingrecket's market value to well 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:05.440 over sixty billion dollars the company's gain market share, while 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:08.800 rivals such as chlorics have stayed flat or struggled to 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:11.720 keep up. And yet the increased production hasn't been enough 0:01:11.760 --> 0:01:15.760 to keep store shelves consistently stocked. This Bloomberg podcast is 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:19.840 sponsored by Wells Fargo Commercial Banking. We're helping customers chart 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:25.200 the way ahead in uncertain times. Lysol is working on it. 0:01:26.280 --> 0:01:29.800 The sanitizer maker is turning out more product than ever before, 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:33.240 but with a pandemic winter on the way, that's still 0:01:33.280 --> 0:01:39.360 not enough. By Drew Armstrong, one of America's most recognizable 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:43.840 icons of fresh scented cleanliness comes from New Jersey. No 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:46.839 matter where US shoppers are lucky enough to spot cans 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:51.160 of Lysol, the sanitizing spray was almost certainly produced at 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:54.960 the same sprawling, tan colored factory in a suburb an 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:58.680 hour's drive from New York City. Over the noisy plant's 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.800 concrete floors, a steady stream of empty cans clink through 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:07.000 an assembly line, waiting to be filled. On the line, 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:09.679 a machine packs them all with a blend of ethanol, 0:02:10.160 --> 0:02:14.280 another disinfecting chemical called a quater narrow and ammonium compound 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:20.200 or quat and some scent employees call the mixture the juice. 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:24.440 A machine called a filtech scans each can to make 0:02:24.440 --> 0:02:28.200 sure it got exactly nineteen ounces. Then a device called 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:30.600 a crimper adds the metal top that will spray the 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:34.480 liceol through the attached plastic straw. In a separate room, 0:02:34.560 --> 0:02:37.600 Another machine uses the straw to inject the butane that 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:40.600 propels the spray. Then the can gets a bath in 0:02:40.639 --> 0:02:43.720 a pool of one hundred forty degree water surrounded by 0:02:43.760 --> 0:02:47.000 a half inch of ballistic glass. This makes it almost 0:02:47.040 --> 0:02:50.519 impossible for the top to burst later unless somebody throws 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:53.640 one into a bonfire. If it's going to explode, it'll 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:57.560 blow here, says chazev Malik, the site director, not on 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.880 the shelf of a wal Mart. Other machines push on 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:04.519 the plastic nozzle wrap on the lysol label and add 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:07.920 a cap up top. The cans are bundled into cases 0:03:07.960 --> 0:03:11.720 and palettes, which are placed onto distribution trucks by forklift. 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:16.000 While new empty cans arrived from a supplier in Pennsylvania. 0:03:16.600 --> 0:03:19.520 The pace has been quicker throughout the pandemic because the 0:03:19.520 --> 0:03:22.960 plant has been running around the clock, excepting the downtime 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:26.480 for shift changes every day. The factory uses up at 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:29.720 least three tanker cars of ethanol that arrive by train, 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:34.080 each carrying about thirty thousand gallons. The plant can produce 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:37.600 seven eight hundred cans of lysol a minute, all of 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:41.560 them quickly bought and used or hoarded by Americans desperate 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:45.760 to keep their stuff virus free. For the record, Lysol 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:50.400 works stars Cove two is an enveloped virus, a clump 0:03:50.440 --> 0:03:54.000 of genetic material wrapped in a membrane of fatty lipid molecules. 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:58.680 Lysol's ethanol and quat act as solvents, ripping apart the 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:03.080 lipid skin and leaving the viral material inert. That doesn't 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:07.160 mean anyone should inject it a treatment. President Trump suggested 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:12.520 doctors consider with disinfectants, including bleach earlier this year. Under 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:16.080 no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:21.440 human body. The updated Lysol website currently reads because that's 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:25.279 where people are at these days. Over the course of 0:04:25.320 --> 0:04:28.560 this maddening year, lysol has been one of the few 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:33.920 products that steadily experienced an unprecedented demand. It's approached frenzy, 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:36.760 a level of panic buying on par with purchases of 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:40.080 toilet paper and rice. In early March, when the New 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:43.359 Jersey sales team tested the fervor by sending one retail 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:47.240 store in Florida ten thousand cans, they sold out in 0:04:47.320 --> 0:04:54.960 less than two hours. Wreck At ben Keyser Group, Lysol's 0:04:55.000 --> 0:04:57.720 corporate parent, says that by year end, it will be 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:00.720 producing thirty five million cans of lie Saul in North 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:04.720 America each month, more than triple its pre COVID nineteen peak, 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:07.800 and enough to put a can in most American households 0:05:07.800 --> 0:05:11.400 before winter is over. So far, Lysol sales are up 0:05:11.440 --> 0:05:15.120 more than seventy this year, pushing Reckett's market value to 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:19.040 well over sixty billion dollars. The company has gained market 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:22.880 share while rivals like Chlorox have stayed flat or struggled 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:25.960 to keep up, and yet the increased production hasn't been 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:30.680 enough to keep store shelves consistently stocked. Wreckett Benkeeser saw 0:05:30.720 --> 0:05:34.400 this coming both from its corporate headquarters outside London and 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:37.479 at one of its biggest manufacturing hubs, located about a 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:40.680 hundred and forty miles west of wu Han, China. But 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:42.760 there was only so much the company could do to 0:05:42.839 --> 0:05:47.599 accommodate everyone. Lysol's parent has proven a leading indicator at 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:51.680 several key points in the pandemic. With winter approaching, the 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:55.400 latest is this. For all its successes in adapting its 0:05:55.480 --> 0:05:58.640 lean global supply chain to a hundred year plague, the 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:02.040 company still hasn't quite managed to match supply to demand. 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:05.480 We've been very transparent about what we have and what 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:09.520 we don't have, says wreck At chief executive officer Laxman Narasiman. 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:18.880 In some cases we do disappoint COVID terror would have 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:22.440 sounded familiar to survivors of the cholera epidemics that swept 0:06:22.560 --> 0:06:25.600 much of the globe in the mid eighteen hundreds. Outbreaks 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.800 killed hundreds of thousands of people who lacked access to 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:32.520 clean water in the US and Europe. One killed three 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:35.360 thousand New York residents in a matter of weeks and 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:38.080 chased tens of thousands of people out of the city. 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:41.480 By the end of the nineteenth century, germ theory had 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:44.960 for the first time pointed to microscopic pathogens as the 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:49.040 cause of infectious disease, and businesses were promising new forms 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:54.120 of chemical protection. In eighteen eighty nine, a German chemist 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:59.040 named Gustav Raupenstrauch created Lysol during the snake oil era. 0:06:59.320 --> 0:07:02.000 The early owner is marketed Lysol as everything from a 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:08.279 household cleanser to more troublingly feminine hygiene product. Today's owners 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:13.200 have restricted Lysol's used to surfaces, not people. Besides the cans, 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:17.160 the company sells disinfecting wipes which rely on milder quats, 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:22.040 cleaning sprays for kitchens, and a toilet bowl cleaner. The 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.480 modern brand owes much of its luster to Joe Rubino, 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:28.240 who started working on Lysol research and development in the 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:32.760 nineteen eighties a couple of owners. Ago Rubino, known inside 0:07:32.800 --> 0:07:35.400 the company as Mr Lysol, is the R and D 0:07:35.560 --> 0:07:38.960 units go to communicator. He spent most of the past 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:42.600 few decades running experiments to show just how gross everyday 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.320 life can be and what a good chemical sprints that 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:49.440 kills nine percent of germs can do about it. We're 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:52.920 designed to share germs, he says in a garden state accent. 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.880 Even if we're healthy, we're spreading our organisms to everybody. 0:07:57.360 --> 0:08:01.360 In a nineties study, Rubino's team coated a toy ball 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.320 at a daycare center with a harmless virus that could 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:08.000 serve as a sort of contact tracer. When the researchers 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:10.440 used swabs to test for the virus. At the end 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:13.040 of the day, all nine kids at the daycare had 0:08:13.080 --> 0:08:15.440 bits of it on their hands, and they spread it 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:19.840 everywhere at home too, from high chairs to bathtubs to beds. 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:22.960 In two thousand seven, the company put thirty people with 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:25.760 the common cold in separate hotel rooms for a night, 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:30.160 then found traces of the cold virus throughout the rooms. 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:33.520 Some of the more photogenic lysol science has taken place 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:36.160 at the brand's R and D Center in Montvale, New Jersey, 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:39.439 located below the New York state line. The R and 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.400 D team keeps a list of about one thousand customers 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:45.280 it can invite into its mock kitchen or suite of 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:49.240 glass enclosed bathrooms to provide opinions on product scents and 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:53.520 spray bottle sounds. The ps de Resistance is Room A 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:58.120 one fifty four, better known as Flushing Meadows. It's an 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:00.960 ode to the commode, a throw own room lined with 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:05.080 one four toilets from around the world, arranged inches apart 0:09:05.160 --> 0:09:09.200 in three aisles beneath national flags. Tanks and filters in 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:12.640 an adjacent room replicate the water conditions in different countries, 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.640 and above each bowl, mechanized plungers test the toilets at 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:21.320 different flush rates, laying the foundation for success. A plaque 0:09:21.400 --> 0:09:25.120 on one wall reads during a Bloomberg Business Week visit 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:27.800 to the R and D Center this fall, the flushing 0:09:27.800 --> 0:09:31.200 meadows toilets were helping to test experimental products code named 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:35.679 for Donkey Kong, Tetris and other video games. To conduct 0:09:35.800 --> 0:09:39.360 smell tests, the staff can fit a plexiglass hood over 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.439 a bowl, then open a top flap on the hood 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:46.400 in turn and breathe deeply. A lot goes into making 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:48.960 toilet bowl cleaners that you would never even think about. 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:52.679 Ruby No said, in an understatement, we can make rust 0:09:52.760 --> 0:09:56.480 stains in here, we can make simulated fecal stains, and 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:59.520 we'll see how well the products remove that. The foe 0:09:59.720 --> 0:10:04.240 PO comprises dirt, brown dye, and sometimes peanut butter. He said, 0:10:04.800 --> 0:10:07.719 there is a formula for it. This visit was Rubino's 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:10.200 first time back at the R and D Center in months. 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:14.560 Although he's semi retired in twenty nineteen, he's continued working 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:17.520 from home three days a week through the pandemic. His 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:20.880 version of the COVID nightmare began in late December with 0:10:20.920 --> 0:10:24.440 an email from a medical alert service called ProMED. The 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:29.400 subject line was undiagnosed pneumonia China. A week and several 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:33.680 escalating alerts later, Rubino sent a note to colleagues, here's 0:10:33.720 --> 0:10:36.839 something we need to watch up. The Yangtze River from 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:40.160 Wuhan lies the city of Jingzho, home to one of 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:44.120 Rickett's biggest manufacturing plants. Most of the products made there 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:48.239 are part of Lysol's sister brand deat All. In late January, 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:52.000 when lockdowns began in Hubei Province, which includes both cities, 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:55.760 David Gao, site director of the Jinghoe plant, called his 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:58.720 lieutenants and told them not to go home. The timing 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:01.280 could hardly have been worse. It was the start of 0:11:01.320 --> 0:11:04.199 the week long Chinese New Year, when the whole country 0:11:04.240 --> 0:11:07.320 goes on vacation. About three hundred and fifty of the 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:10.280 factories four hundred workers had already left the city, and 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:14.000 not enough remained to restart disinfectant production. With the public 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:19.360 health crisis spiraling, Gau canceled his employees vacations and negotiated 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:21.880 travel permits with the government to allow them to return 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:24.679 to work. I talked to the government and told them 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.480 we are the factory to make the disinfectant. Gau says. 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:31.480 The permits came through we chat and managers helped return 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:35.040 close to three hundred people. One worker rode a bicycle 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:38.280 six hours to get to the plant, Gao says, another 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:42.080 walked thirteen hours. The government helped put the wrecket staff 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:45.679 up in hotels for weeks, isolated even from their families, 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:48.880 and a neighboring factory boss topped up the plant's dwindling 0:11:48.920 --> 0:11:52.880 supply of masks in exchange for disinfectant. Gau says. No 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:56.640 one at the plant got COVID. The employee sacrificed a lot, 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:00.360 he says, nobody quit. By the end of jan weary 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:03.840 people in Europe were testing positive for the disease. The 0:12:03.880 --> 0:12:07.600 World Health Organization had declared the coronavirus and international public 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:11.160 health emergency, and Narasiman, who had been wreck at CEO 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:15.000 only a few months, ordered his executives to maximize production 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:18.800 by any means necessary. Guys turn on the factories twenty 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.400 four hours, he recalls, telling them during a conference call, 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:29.000 we went full blast. One problem with going full blast 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:32.040 was that every consumer hygiene company in the world was 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:34.880 doing the same thing, and they all rely on a 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:38.360 lot of the same key ingredients. With Lysol and its 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:41.559 rivals gobbling up hundreds of thousands of gallons of ethanol 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:44.840 and tons of quats, there wasn't enough to go around. 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:48.280 Even when the pandemic jumbled supply chain was at its best, 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:53.120 and like many global manufacturers, Wreckett keeps little spare material 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:57.160 on hand. It relies on shipping companies to deliver steady supplies. 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:00.960 It's a global supply chain and it's not integrated, says 0:13:01.000 --> 0:13:04.400 Frederick du Trene, senior vice president of supply for the 0:13:04.400 --> 0:13:08.920 company's health division. The jing Joe factory, for example, needed 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:12.640 outside suppliers to deliver more than one different raw materials 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:15.440 and parts. When he learned there wasn't enough of a 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:18.160 critical chemical left in all of China to meet its 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:21.800 increased production needs, du Trene decided to eat the cost 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:24.760 of flying in more from the UK. For a supply 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:27.800 chain executive, having to air freight tens of tons of 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.840 raw materials across continents is something close to a worst nightmare. 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:34.800 His bosses didn't want to raise prices and be seen 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:38.080 as taking advantage of the pandemic. We decided not to 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:42.120 do any compromise on this. Du Trenee says margin has 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:45.640 not been a driver. As COVID spread through the US 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:49.640 and lisol hoarding began in earnest, the assembly line started 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:53.280 running short of quats and ethanol. Again, the supply team 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:57.240 found answers in Europe flying in more quads. Eventually, the 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:00.319 company located a plant in Nebraska with spare ethanol from 0:14:00.360 --> 0:14:03.760 its lower grade gasoline additive and retooled it to make 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:07.400 purer ethanol for lysol. It also looked online to see 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:10.320 who around the world was selling alternatives to lysol or 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:13.680 chlorox products. The hundreds of small never heard of it 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:17.280 brands that suddenly populated Amazon, dot Com and other websites 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:20.800 this spring and began signing deals with the smaller companies 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:25.880 to use their production capacity. Pre Covid. Lysol production capabilities 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.800 in North America topped out at about ten million cans 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:32.040 a month, according to Wreckett, With more than a dozen 0:14:32.120 --> 0:14:35.600 contractors signed up to produce more, the monthly number should 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:37.720 hit the thirty five million mark by the end of 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:40.920 the year. The company says, plus more than thirty million 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:44.160 cans of wipes, up from less than seven million cans 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:46.720 a year ago. While the company still hasn't been able 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:49.480 to meet all of the demand, its gains in market 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:53.320 share suggest that its outpacing competitors. Along with the seventy 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:57.200 revenue increase for Lysol products, Debt Hall sales are up 0:14:57.280 --> 0:15:00.600 fifty around the world, and Wreckett has managed to keep 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:04.480 other cleaning supplies in circulation too. Because people are staying 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.440 home more, they're using more of the company's dish detergent. 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:11.320 They're lonelier, so they're getting pets and buying more Resolve, 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:15.640 its spray product for carpet messes. More cooking and pets 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:18.720 mean more smells in the house. Therefore, people need more 0:15:18.760 --> 0:15:22.880 air fresheners. Sales of the company's directs condoms, however, have 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:27.200 yet to rebound to pre pandemic levels. Recket expects something 0:15:27.240 --> 0:15:29.640 like the current level of demand to last through much 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:35.080 of it says increased capacity from new contract manufacturers will 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:37.880 allow it to sell as much Lisol as retailers want 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:40.680 by the spring, and to resume making products in the 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:43.440 sense and sizes it eliminated this year for the sake 0:15:43.440 --> 0:15:47.120 of efficiency. People will want to get their favorite fragrance back, 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:51.040 says Harold Van den Breck, the president, of Reckett's hygiene business. 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:53.240 They will want to get the wipes that they were 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:57.560 used to. Narasiman says he's considering introducing a hand sanitizer 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:01.560 in the US market where Purel don and aids. Wrecket 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:05.480 is also investing in more US manufacturing facilities so it 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:08.720 can reduce its reliance on contractors later this year, and 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:13.640 it says be self sufficient by three The added capacity 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:16.320 is a bet that the pandemic has permanently changed how 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:20.400 people think about cleaning their houses and themselves. Even when 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:23.080 all this goes away, demand for our products will be 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:27.360 structurally higher than what they were pre COVID. Narasiman says. 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:31.560 While that bet seems pretty safe right now, it remains 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:34.840 tough for the company to gauge exactly where demand might settle. 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.560 About three months ago, the Lysol team began sending ten 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:41.280 times its usual shipments to a group of thirty to 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:44.680 fifty U S retail stores, depending on the day or week. 0:16:45.240 --> 0:16:48.840 Some days, the company says, every last item sells within 0:16:48.920 --> 0:16:52.800 two hours. It's not a perfect test. The Lysol team 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:56.440 has received reports that customers post online whenever they spot 0:16:56.480 --> 0:16:59.640 cans or wipes in the test locations, bringing in more 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:04.160 shops for now and likely through the winter, many Americans 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:07.560 in search of Lysol and other household disinfectants won't be 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.320 able to buy as much as they want. During a 0:17:10.359 --> 0:17:13.560 typical shift at the New Jersey factory from seven thirty 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:16.760 am to three thirty pm, a digital counter on a 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:19.880 wall keeps track of how many finished cases the assembly 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:23.359 line has produced on that day this fall, with about 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:25.959 an hour left in the shift, the count stood at 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:29.400 six thousand, four hundred and seventy five cases of lysol, 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:33.960 or almost eighty thousand cans. In the packing area, the 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:38.280 machines were still loud enough to require ear plugs. Cal Swedberg, 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:42.640 Wrecketts regional manufacturing director, looked up as hundreds of finished 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:45.960 canisters wound down rows of conveyor belts stacked twenty to 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:49.879 thirty feet high. Employees call it the Wall of Lysol. 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:52.720 As the cylinders rolled off the line to be wrapped 0:17:52.720 --> 0:17:56.720 into cases and then into two thousand canned palettes. Swedberg 0:17:56.800 --> 0:18:00.880 said that lasts a costco about three minutes, and that's 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:02.920 one of the feature stories this week in the magazine. 0:18:03.000 --> 0:18:05.520 Check out more in the current issue of Bloomberg Business Week. 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:08.480 It's on newsstands online end at Bloomberg dot com and 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:11.359 of course, always on the Bloomberg terminal. I'm Carol Masser. 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:15.560 November through December four, join Bloomberg for a week dedicated 0:18:15.560 --> 0:18:18.920 to the mainstreaming of sustainable finance. Five days of events 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:22.480 and insight. We're accelerating towards seventy five trillion dollars in 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.960 sustainable finance. Learn more at Bloomberg dot com slash s 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:26.359 f W