In this episode, Brian speaks with Jacob Block, the 30-year old Founder/CEO of American Nitrile, a manufacturer of Nitrile gloves in Grove City, Ohio.
Jacob’s mission is to bring manufacturing of critical medical equipment back to the United States. He wants to produce the highest quality nitrile gloves for frontline workers, industrial companies and a host of other industries. Listen to his incredible journey from Venture Capitalist to Entrepreneur.
Highlights from Jacob Block:
- In July 2020, a handful of families in Malaysia controlled 80% of the world’s supply of nitrile gloves with 40% of those gloves sold into the United States through layers of distribution.
- I asked myself “How many gloves do we need to be comparably priced with Asia? The answer is around four billion. Ok, go big or go home!” That’s what we did.
- We built an onsite water treatment plant that can service 300,000 homes in Ohio. That’s how much water we use in our glove-making process. There was a strong business case to build the infrastructure onsite to process and recycle the water.
- When gloves come off a production line in Malaysia or China, they are put into containers and will float for a month to two on the water in 120 degrees Fahrenheit. They are essentially sitting in an oven for 45-60 days which erodes the quality and the integrity of the glove. If hospitals tested same glove after the transit period, it won’t perform like it did at the initial test. American Nitrile removed the international supply chain transit time.
- We secured patents on the next generation of nitrile gloves. Our goal is to continually improve the quality, performance, and reliability of nitrile gloves.
- I want American Nitrile to be the blueprint for the new era of domestic manufacturing that is sustainable and profitable.
