CPGs Back Biden’s Bid to Bolster Supply Chains

2/26/2021

CPGs Back Biden’s Bid to Bolster Supply Chains Executive Order

Weaknesses in the supply chain impede the CPG industry’s ability to keep store shelves stocked with essential products.

The Consumer Brands Association (CBA) has expressed its strong approval of President Joe Biden’s executive order to secure U.S. supply chains, which was signed on Feb. 24.

“The COVID-19 pandemic and recent winter storms have exposed severe vulnerabilities and a need for coordinated leadership on U.S. supply chains,” noted Geoff Freeman, president and CEO of the Arlington, Virginia-based CBA, which represents nearly 2,000 well-known brands. “As Consumer Brands identified in a recent memo to the Biden administration, supply-chain vulnerabilities threaten the consumer packaged goods industry’s ability to keep shelves stocked with essential products that Americans depend on to stay home and stay safe.”

Added Freeman: “In signing this executive order, President Biden is assuring our industry that his administration takes seriously the foreign and domestic threats to supply chains and is committed to working with the private sector on this issue. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, CPG essential workers have stepped up to ensure the availability, affordability and accessibility of essential products, and now we ask government to do the same. We are encouraged to see that the administration heard our concerns regarding the need to protect these critical product supply chains and has included consumer packaged goods in the year-long review phase.”

According to the executive: “The need to address supply chain challenges has never been greater. Increasingly complex and interconnected supply chains need to be met with policy and leadership that recognizes that complexity and accounts for it through interagency collaboration and greater strategic direction.”

The CBA recently issued a review of current supply-chain policies, offering more than a dozen recommendations to enhance resiliency and national competitiveness, among them the establishment of a federal Office of Supply Chain that would provide greater visibility across agencies.

Biden’s order directs his administration to “identify opportunities to implement policies to secure supply chains that grow the American economy, increase wages, benefit small businesses and historically disadvantaged communities, strengthen pandemic and biopreparedness, support the fight against global climate change, and maintain America’s technological leadership in key sectors.”