A small gin distillery in the North Bay is now dispensing its first batch of hand sanitizer to healthcare providers, first responders and homeless shelters.
“A lot of small care facilities, senior care facilities; the most recent place had about 500 beds that they needed to account for and they were telling me they had a three week lead time on hand sanitizer. Everything was backordered,” says Matt Meyer, co-founder of Loch and Union Distilling in American Canyon.
It took his team a few weeks to figure out to convert from distilling spirits to personal hygiene products. Now the five-gallon containers will be sent on to facilities that say it cannot come fast enough.
“We’re getting this out to places that have had three, four week backlogs from their traditional sources of hand sanitizer who are running out. They’re running on their last gallon. I’ve taken calls from people who are saying ‘we’re running on essentially fumes at this point’,” says Meyer. “It does feel really good to get that out to people.”
The initial batch of sanitizer is 500 gallons but the distillery may brew up more to help fill the demand.
Meyer says it feels good to do his small part. “I realized how fortunate I am to not only do something with my time but do something that has a lot of good effects on the area.”