SUNDRE - Owen Petersen never imagined making a health product when he and his partners opened a distillery in Sundre just over a year ago.
“I had no idea I was ever going to be excited about hand sanitizer,” he said.
For the last couple of weeks, the making of gin and wassail at Greenwood Distillers has been put on hold while production of skin cleanser ramps up.
When COVID-19 spread across the world, anti-bacterial skin cleansers started selling out fast leading to shortages.
Distillery owners found their knowledge, processes, product and equipment could be put to use for something other than alcoholic beverages.
“Once everything started to change in our world we picked up the idea...it became quickly evident that we could get on this train with a slight adjustment of our production,” said Petersen.
The first batch went into production a few weeks ago and was donated to physician clinics and pharmacies in Sundre.
A second batch was expected to be ready last week. Plans are to donate a quarter of it to first responders in the community with the rest being sold.
“We’re getting calls from companies as far away as Calgary and even a call from Toronto asking for hand sanitzer. With demand, especially on the business-side of things – every store that’s open, they can’t be washing their hands all the time so hand sanitizer is the next best thing," he said.
They are using the World Health Organization’s recommended recipe in the making of the product.
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The active ingredient in hand sanitizer is alcohol, says Petersen, while another ingredient de-natures the alcohol so that it’s not drinkable.
“And another ingredient is to just help it not ruin your hands; suck all the moisture out. It’s hard enough on your hands, so there’s different ingredients to do that,” he said.
Petersen said the company is going through Health Canada’s expedited application process to be authorized to sell the product.
It’s hoped that they can sell some of the sanitzer to add income.
“As a new business we don’t have big payroll expenses and things like that. So we’re really just trying to pay our rent, pay our utilities and keep it going -- kind of weather the storm,” he said.
He said a lot of businesses don’t have that option right now.
“We’re feeling pretty lucky there’s something we can do to just keep our lights on.”
