Testing swab maker ‘doing everything we can to help'

Springfield, Mass.-based foam swab manufacturer Super Brush LLC saw significant growth this year with increased business of about 80 million swabs for COVID-19 test kits in 2020.

The company expects sales will be up 15-20 percent compared to 2019, Diane Henry, director of sales, told Plastics News.

During its "interesting" year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Henry said, Super Brush saw some reduction in demand for its swab products used in elective surgeries, industrial and aerospace, while demand from the coronavirus soared.

Super Brush hired more than 65 new employees this year to meet demand from nearly all new customer inquiries for COVID-19 testing swabs.

"It's nothing we expected or forecasted," Henry said. "Finding and hiring staff, training staff and getting people up to speed has been a challenge, as well as trying to implement all of the recommendations for dealing with COVID, such as the monitoring and social distancing."

The company injection molds sticks and forms foam into usable shapes to create the swabs. It also builds its own equipment for foam sealing, Henry said.

Super Brush was lucky, she said, because its resins and foams are U.S.-made, which kept its supply chain intact throughout the pandemic. But the company's increased swab production isn't expected to last, Henry said.

"The [COVID-19 swab] business is just added on," she said. "We have a lot of great [regular] customers that we don't want to neglect. … We know it's not going to last forever, but we're doing everything we can to help."

It also added manufacturing and office space this year, Henry said, with a retrofit to an existing area of its facility, which is expected to be completed this month.

Super Brush's business is now 90 percent medical, she said, with its remaining business in industrial and aerospace cleaning and manufacturing swabs. It also saw an increase in demand this year for its gun-cleaning line of swabs this year.