#28 - Nexperia Under Siege, Halloween Caught Between Tariffs and Missing Candy, and Digital Procurement with Xylem 🎙️

⚙️ Nexperia Under Dutch Control: Europe Discovers Its Tech Fragility

October 2025. After weeks of tension between The Hague and Beijing, the Dutch government decided to take control of Nexperia, the semiconductor manufacturer headquartered in Nijmegen but controlled by the Chinese group Wingtech Technology.

This is the first time in history that the Goods Availability Act has been invoked, an emergency law created to manage wartime crises, and now used for a... chip crisis.

Behind the technical language (“governance shortcomings” and “national security risks”) lies a much bigger problem: Europe is still dependent on China for the simplest but most widespread chips, the ones that make everything run: from windshield wipers to washing machines.

The numbers speak for themselves: Nexperia supplies between 70 and 80% of the “discrete” semiconductors used by European industry. When The Hague froze the company’s strategic decisions, the entire automotive supply chain shook.

ACEA has already warned that if the situation isn’t resolved quickly, we could see new production stoppages as early as December. Germany’s VDA is openly talking about a “domino effect” risk for Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers.

China, predictably, didn’t take it well: it responded with restrictions on exports of components made by Nexperia in its local factories.

Moral of the story? Europe has discovered that even “mundane” chips can become geopolitical weapons.

💡 The Procurement Lesson

In 2025, the real competitive advantage isn’t price; it’s supply chain transparency. Whoever doesn’t know where, and from whom, their components are produced doesn’t have a strategy, just a gamble.

It’s time to treat even “minor” suppliers as strategic partners, to diversify, and to build solid continuity plans. Resilience costs money, but fragility costs more.

🔗 Sources: Dutch Government, AP News, Financial Times, The Guardian

👻 Halloween 2025: Tariffs, Early Logistics, and the (Very Real) Candy Crisis

Trick or treat? This year, for anyone working in Procurement, it was mostly... trick.

In the United States, Halloween 2025 broke every record: $13.1 billion in spending according to the National Retail Federation. A boom made possible by purchases starting earlier and earlier, as early as September, and a supply chain that had to race against time to avoid running short on decorations and costumes.

But behind the colorful storefronts and packaged candy, the dark side is all in the logistics. 90% of Halloween-themed products still come from China, and this year new 30% American tariffs on plastic and decorations hit right in the middle of seasonal production.

A Chicago-based importer told Bloomberg they spent over $800,000 in extra tariffs just to get masks and gadgets there on time.

Ships carrying orange containers, full of fake spiderwebs and vampire costumes, had already set sail in June, months earlier than usual, to avoid congestion at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles.

According to S&P Global, the peak of Halloween product imports has now shifted to early summer.

And then there’s the candy: Hershey’s announced price hikes as cocoa costs soar, while Mars Wrigley had to recalibrate its production lines due to the cost of sugar, which the FAO estimates will rise by +41% compared to last year.

The result? Retail SMEs found themselves caught between tariffs, shortages, and emergency air shipments costing $14 per kilo. Not exactly sweet.

A lesson for Procurement? Seasonality shows no mercy: plan ahead, or pay the price.

Modern Procurement needs to function like a weather system, able to predict logistical storms and off-the-charts prices. Planning ahead, simulating scenarios, and collaborating upstream with logistics and marketing: it’s the only way to keep a celebration from turning into a nightmare.

🔗 Sources: NRF, Reuters, S&P Global, MarketWatch

💧 Digital Procurement and Sustainability That Flows, with Alberto Pasa (Xylem)

In this new episode of the Compri Bene podcast, we interview Alberto Pasa, Senior Director Global Indirect Category Management & Digital Procurement at Xylem Inc., an American multinational leader in water transport and purification.

A direct conversation about Digital Procurement, global governance, and sustainable impact, told by someone who manages complex indirect categories within critical infrastructure like water.

🎧 Watch and listen to the interview! ⬇️

💬 Your Opinion Matters!

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Write to us 📨 at compribene@compri.ai and let us know what you think! We’re here to listen and make Compri Bene even more useful and interesting. ⚡

The Compri Bene Team