BUFFALO, N.Y. — You may have noticed the last time you went to the store that it is tough to find things made out of cotton right now. It turns out that there is an international cotton shortage.
Wegmans has signs up saying there are supply chain issues with health and beauty items like cotton balls. Wegmans told 2 On Your Side it uses a domestic supplier that has faced labor shortages and delays of raw materials.
But Wegmans says it has added an additional supplier, and stores will be seeing cotton balls on the shelves once again in the next few days.
Natalie Simpson is the Chair of the Department of Operations Management and Strategy at the University at Buffalo. She studies the supply chain and told us that the cotton shortage has a lot to do with what's going on in China right now, even though the United States produces a lot of cotton.
Simpson says China pretty much cleaned out the United States.
"One of the reasons that they have done that lately is that they're producing textiles for major brand names like Nike," Simpson said. "And lately, several of those brand names have announced that they will not allow their products to feature cotton that was grown in the regions of China in which the, you know, the controversy with the Muslim minority, the Uyghurs, in China.
"It's one of the reasons we're not sending diplomats, because there's evidence that they have been rounded up and put in re-education camps, and there's human rights violations. Many brands like Nike, they said well, no, no, cotton is associated with Uyghurs that region of China, because we cannot be confident that there is not essentially human rights violations of labor of the raising of those cotton," Simpson added.
Simpson also says generally the prices on clothes made out of cotton will go up because the cotton supply is very tight.
"We've had some pretty good crops, but we've had some set backs. The demand globally for cotton is increasing regardless, and so you're just going to notice that that is one of the many things that are going to feed the increase in clothing prices," Simpson said.
We also asked the hospitals if this is impacting them because they use a lot of cotton supplies.
Kaleida told us nothing pressing has been brought to their attention yet.
Catholic Health's supply chain staff members say the same shortages that impact consumers are affecting healthcare, but they have an inventory monitoring system that helps them stay on top of things.
And Erie County Medical Center checked with its purchasing department, and it says it hasn't seen any cotton shortages.
Because of the situation in China, Simpson says there is no telling when these issues will be resolved.