Grainger, silent partner in coronavirus contract, sold protective gear to US for double the cost.
Under the deal, the U.S. government paid Federal Express to fly Tyvek, a synthetic material, from a DuPont facility in Richmond, Virginia, to Vietnam, where it was sewn into coveralls at a factory that DuPont uses. DuPont first told NBC News that it sold the suits to the federal government, which paid FedEx to fly the finished product back to the U.S.
But DuPont typically doesn’t sell directly to the federal government and it may have needed a partner for immediate entree into the contracting system. A person familiar with the arrangement said the federal government was specifically interested in purchasing DuPont’s Tyvek-based coveralls.President Donald Trump, the HHS Department, DuPont and FedEx all heralded the agreement last week. They praised each other, but none of them mentioned Grainger.
Though Grainger has a nationwide distribution network, its contract with the HHS department is only for the purchase of the coveralls and the associated paperwork that cleared the way for FedEx to leave Vietnam with the goods and land in the U.S., according to the HHS department spokesperson.the standard listed price
for this off-schedule transaction,” Joseph Micucci, a spokesman for the company, said in an email response to questions from NBC News about what is by far the largest federal contract Grainger has ever won for apparel."[W]e carefully review all pricing to ensure that any price increases are only the result of our increased costs."Grainger lists several styles and sizes of Tyvek coveralls at $221 for packages of 25, a 10 percent cut from which is $7.
A senior administration official familiar with supply-chain issues said that Vice President Mike Pence's coronavirus task force and its subunits bought as much available stock of personal protective equipment as possible and have worked to use partnerships like Project Airbridge to expedite the process of obtaining material from overseas. In the case of the coveralls, that reduced shipping time from the U.S. to Vietnam and back from 90 days to 10 days.
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