Jug manufacturers are struggling to keep up with supply demands during the state of emergency.
Jared Harrity is a machine operator in the manufacturing of plastic jugs used for water and milk.
Harrity said right now, the demand is comparable to what he would see at Christmastime, except then it’s because of holiday hours and reduced store hours.
“Normally we’d only run at two eight hour shifts, we’d start at 8 a.m. and then at midnight they would shut down. But we’ve put a third shift on so we’re running Monday to Friday, 24 hours a day now and also all the overtime we can get on the weekend and we’re just barely keeping up,” he said.
Harrity said dairy is one of their biggest customers, and he knows people forget how essential his work is, especially right now.
“Because we’re part of the food industry, I mean, everybody, if they want to have milk the cows aren’t going to stop producing milk just because there’s a coronavirus pandemic going on right now. This is now the time we’re busier than ever,” he said.
Harrity said everything that has to do with food or household items that needs to be made that comes out of a machine can be linked up to essential services such as toilet paper, and breweries, which is why manufacturing cities are still bustling.
“We’ll run all that we can run possibly as fast as we can go. There will be product on the floor and then literally I’ll probably go in tonight and there’ll be little or none left and we’re starting again. So we can’t get ahead at all,” he said.
Harrity said right now, as long as he and his family is healthy, he’ll keep doing his job and he’s confident everything will turn out alright.
