Sealed Air shares how they have been navigating through the COVID-19 crisis.
How has corona impacted your business?
During the Sealed Air Q1 Earnings call in early May, Ted Doheny President and CEO of Sealed Air commented:
“During a time where we must practice social distancing, our focus on driving automation and doing more with less by investing and working smarter, has become even more imperative to our own operations and for our customers. We are accelerating our innovations to support a more touchless, digital world. When we get through this pandemic, our core competencies in automation, food safety and protecting goods with advanced packaging solutions will be even more relevant and driving our profitable growth.”
Approximately 65% of our sales are derived from packaging fresh and frozen proteins as well as other food, fluids and goods for the medical and life sciences industries. In March, coinciding with the implementation of stay-at-home or lockdown orders, the food industry experienced a dramatic shift to retail and a dramatic slowdown in food service. For Sealed Air, this shift resulted in a surge in demand for our retailed applications, including case ready, shrink bags and prepackaged meals and snacks designed for home consumption.
We are also seeing increases in demand for goods that support the stay-at-home environment and are shipped through e-commerce as retail channels have rapidly shifted away from brick-and-mortar stores. Across our global business, we estimate that approximately 75% of our end markets are experiencing increased demand for food, medical supplies and consumer staples.
Has production been affected, or do you expect it to be?
We have been able to provide products and increased level of volumes. We actually had some products that were up over 90%, and we were able to respond due to our global network and our breadth of portfolio.
We’re maximizing productivity across our business segments, regions and functions, enabling fast, coordinated decision-making. Our product strategy is resonating with our customers in this time of crisis, delivering the best products at the right price and making them sustainable. Practising social distancing and implementing automation to do more with less by investing and working smarter has become even more important to both our operations and our customers. We’re accelerating our innovations to support a more touchless digital world.
Has your supply chain been impacted, or do you envisage such challenges?
We are meeting with our customers and suppliers to manage the demand volatility, which is changing daily to ensure our supply is uninterrupted and we are confident that we will continue to execute at a high level regardless of market volatility.
How do you see coronavirus impacting more generally on packaging / FMCG, and do you have any suggestions as to how the industry can mitigate these impacts?
Longer term, we expect the learnings from the pandemic will drive secular global demand increases for automation and packaged proteins. Producers will invest in more automation for efficiency and safety, and consumers around the world will demand packaging formats that maximize food safety, minimize food waste and are sustainable.
