It has been pretty hectic week and a half since I posted on 3/27 about my decision to retool my company Toast, to manufacture face shields.
Last week, we were able to manufacture and ship the first 700 face shields to clinics, hospitals and fire fighters around the US. This week we are working to increase our daily capacity to 350.
To recap: Toast is a small boutique manufacturer of wood and leather products, mostly tech accessories like phone and laptops covers. We lament the overuse of plastic on this planet and focused on using only natural materials, wood and leather. But with the rapid explosion of the Coronavirus pandemic it was clear that business as usual wouldn’t cut it. We needed to see what we could do contribute to the fight. And see if we could do something to help relieve the shortage of PPE and help protect those working on the front lines of this pandemic.
So how did it go?
Well… there are always manufacturing challenges to overcome but those felt manageable. Those obstacles were within my comfort zone and the team here took to the changeover with determination and energy.
You do need to leave some space for people to learn the ropes and slowly pick up steam and then start innovating to streamline the processes. But we were short of hands and lacking in materials. We brought in a new person and called back some office help working from home. Toast is only a team of 9 people, by the way.
The harder challenges stem from handling the first flood of interest and figuring out who to sell to and how to continue the work. You would be surprised (or maybe wouldn’t) by the number of resellers and others looking to get their hands in between us, our shields, and the people on the front lines.
After the initial flood of requests, and the hoops we put up to qualify purchasers, we had surprisingly few actual orders. “If you built it, they will come just” doesn’t exist these days. So true with business on the internet now, but a bit shocking in this situation. Information moves fast and memories fade quickly. Even if the news is a non-stop call for action because of lack of PPE.
So we eventually sold the first week’s production and are now part way through the second week but it is not the demand I expected nor going to go through all the material I bought anytime soon. So we decided that maybe donations could be a way to power this. Roughly 25% of the requests to purchase were to buy in order to donate to a clinic or department at a hospital. So we are going to try it. We are still screening purchasers and the shipments will have to go directly to the hospital or clinic. For this we are reducing the box size to 20 face shields and selling these at $200 plus $20 for shipping.
Email sales@toastmade.com to request the purchase form.
We still want to sell most of our capacity directly to the clinics and health care centers as the fastest most direct route. But there is room to help people give and I do feel people are truly inspired to help in any way they can. Just look at the outpouring of homemade mask donations.
And that brings me around to Apple. I always saw our efforts as a stop gap. Firstly, we can’t physically make that many shields, and secondly, we don’t have the economy of scale of a major manufacturer. Clearly the big companies would step up eventually, either compelled by the government or self-preservation. So I welcome Apple to make face shields and honestly, their design looks pretty good and who is going to argue with a goal of 1 million per week. We need them.
So if you like what we are doing, please pass along the link to our website: https://www.toastmade.com/ppe-face-shield-landing-page
And if you are compelled to donate, find a hospital or clinic taking donations and send them a box of shields, we are here to help.
Stay safe, stay strong!
-PDXer