Letter from the President

Froude has performed well through the pandemic although, unfortunately, COVID is not over yet. We’ve also more recently had to endure impacts due to geopolitical problems. Throughout this difficult environment, we continue to grow as a company. Our growth is reflected in the addition of many new employees and new product expansions.

The troublesome environment continues to be an issue not only for us but for our entire industry. Consequently, we now provide “estimates” in our offerings since supply chain issues and unprecedented price shifts are affecting our day-to-day. In response, we delay updating our pricing and schedule until the purchase order is executed. Unfortunately, it’s the best we can do with the ever-changing supply chain pricing and scheduling issues. Many of our peers and vendors have taken the same approach.

We’ve been through a variety of unprecedented issues, such as off-the-shelf catalog items now being quoted as 180-day deliveries. We have experienced price changes on basic items that have increased by 500% overnight. The most difficult piece of this puzzle is that it’s almost impossible to forecast where these risks may originate.

We encourage our customers to order as early as possible to mitigate these risks and ensure we can get everything necessary on order with known fixed prices and deliveries. If there is an 11th-hour surprise, we may not have the ability to recover quickly.

Thank you for recognizing the difficulties our industry is working through. Just recently I’ve felt a slight improvement in the supply chain although it is nowhere near recovered. Our Froude team is doing a great job navigating through these challenges.

We appreciate your business and will work hard to ensure we provide you with the best possible timing and pricing to fit your applications. Please help us by ordering as early as possible.