The COVID-19 winners in corporate Australia among retailers, packaging groups and consumer goods companies are still generally winning. They are generating strong profit growth as lockdowns drag on in the two biggest cities of Sydney and Melbourne and stay-at-home consumption picks up momentum.

But thousands of kilometres offshore from the dejected households busily shopping online or via click-and-collect, the shipping channels so vital to distributing the goods to warehouses in Australia are increasingly unreliable as COVID-19 wreaks havoc on what global traders had been taking for granted.