The world literally can’t meet the demand for colouring pencils. Won’t somebody, please, think of the children?
Do you know anybody that has one of those anti-stress colouring books? Or perhaps you bought someone one for Christmas? If so, you’re contributing to what may be one of the leading first-world problems: a global shortage of colouring pencils.
Casting aside other shortages the world faces like clean drinking water, the world’s biggest wooden pencil manufacturer, Faber-Castell reported it is having to run extra shifts to meet demand.
The company has been forced to run the extra shifts in their German factory to meet “double-digit growth”, with Sandra Suppa from Faber-Castell telling the Independent, “Currently, we are running more shifts than usual in our factory in Stein, Bavaria in order to satisfy the global needs for artists pencils related to the colouring trend for adults. The trend is continuing to this day and can be felt globally – from South America to Asia.”
Sandra goes to say that the increase in demand in the colouring books has had a “ripple effect”, as those people are no longer satisfied with ‘just’ 36 colours. “We are noticing a trend in people preferring bigger sets of 72 or even 120 colours for colouring.”
The need is obviously both dire and urgent, if you see a stressed looking adult – please, don’t a pencil.
