By: Sameera Fazili and Peter Harrell
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the things consumers and producers wanted, from cars to toilet paper to yeast to lumber, simply appeared in showrooms, on store shelves, and in ports to be purchased and used when convenient. But over the last 18 months, we’ve seen shortages in goods large and small, often due to surprisingly small causes and hidden vulnerabilities. For example, the demand for yeast quadrupled in spring 2020, as homebound Americans tried their hand at making bread. Fleischmann’s Yeast, a major producer, had capacity to make yeast; it was lack of packaging that led to shortages and delays. The glass jars used to package the yeast were sourced from India, where production had been shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[1]
Nimble firms resolved some of these shortages quickly. Fleischmann’s figured out how to package yeast in plastic bags, and toilet…
