Dear Paul,
I do not intend to sound 'sniffy' but commercial and professional photographic film manufacturing to ISO 9001 as done by KODAK / FUJI / AGFA and Ourselves is actually 'rocket science' ..... with more than 100 years of technical development ( if you will excuse the pun ).
INDEED.
That is why there is concern and gnashing of teeth at the moves that Kodak, or Alaris or both seems to be making.
Many Photographers will use either Bulk film or Factory rolls at least partly based on the price. In my 50 years of using film of various kinds and brands bulk rolls were always the same or lower priced than factory packed rolls. {there are a few applications where the long rolls are actually needed like the 250 exposure backs, School Portrait cameras, or folks that consitantly need to use short 5 exposure rolls for some spacial application}
If bulk is MORE expensive than factory rolls, there is no reason a sane person would not just bay the factory packed rolls as long as they can use the size. At Kodaks current price it actually makes some sense to only partly use a 36 exposure roll if you need less and throw away the blank film if you are one of the users who only needs short rolls.
for those who need both bulk and factory rolls of the same film, it may mean biting the bullet and adjusting to using HP5 or Delta 400 even if you prefer Tri-X or TMY. The result is a demand reduction for Kodak.
The serious competitors (and first class rocket scientists all) are Ilford, Foma and perhaps Filmotec ORWO, but I am not sure if the later actually makes their film or just converts it, and they go out of their way to not try to market for still photography. Kodak has always been at the higher end on price and the current trend seems to point to that accelerating.
My Alden 200 may be getting a bit lonely in the cupboard.