RTB provides integrity, agility, experience, and on-the-ground staff when sourcing overseas.
Covid & PPE
RTB’s integrity, agility, experience, and on-the-ground staff in China, Vietnam and Malaysia allowed us to supply over $26 million in PPE in 2020. We have delivered PPE to buyers across the nation including the states of TN, WA and VA, multiple counties in New York, as well as the NYU Langone Hospital system and many other entities, both large and small. We’ve provided nitrile and hybrid medical gloves, N95’s, generic and ASTM-certified surgical masks, face shields, gowns, booties, hair covers, etc. And we did it all in a morally and ethically defensible manner. We charge fair prices and document the validity of our products more thoroughly than anyone in the PPE space. Because if PPE is not provably real, it’s fake.
Finding PPE During COVID
RTB was uniquely positioned to help fill the PPE void when the Covid crisis hit. Our President, Jim Inglese spent 13 years in corporate health care before racking up 20 years of manufacturing experience in Asia. RTB had a front-row seat to the effects of Covid in China, knew it would be much more severe in the US and foresaw the inexorable shortages of PPE. We also knew that unqualified entities would chase profits by purposefully or unwittingly offering fake or substandard PPE and immediately took action to develop an ethically and morally defensible import protocol specific to PPE. RTB developed our “Proof of Provenance” SOP before most of our competitors knew what an N95 was.
The PPE Crisis
The magnitude of the fake PPE crisis cannot be overstated. 63% of N95’s The Wall Street Journal purchased on the open market failed basic filtration testing; over 68% of KN95’s tested by the CDC showed the same result. It’s unconscionable and we’re on a mission to do all we can to stop this. Giving doctors N95s that are not provably real is not only immoral, it’s a liability nightmare. A mask that is not provably real must be assumed to be fake. Here is what we are doing to ensure provenance and document it to a level that we feel is defensible.
The Difference With RTB
- We produce only at factories where we have both vetted certifications through the FDA and CDC and have had our staff perform physical site visits
- We wire money directly to the factory named on the NIOSH or FDA certificates (redacted wire copies included in provenance package)
- Our staff randomly checks production at the certified factory on an ongoing basis
- Each of the following steps are documented with photographs bearing GPS and time stamps to prove authenticity, timeline and chain of custody
o Product pick up from the approved facility:
- N95’s and most other PPE retrieved from an off-site location/warehouse are arguably fake
o Inspection on factory grounds an independent 3rd party inspection company:
- UL, BV, SGS or similar company
- Inspection report included in proof of provenance
- In some instances inspection must be performed off-site at a nearby warehouse
- Allowed only on goods that have been picked up from approved factory
- Goods are followed to facility
- Inspection by 3rdparty documented by photos with time/GPS stamps
o Reloading of goods into original trucks
o Handoff to secure transport or customs warehouse