THE Scottish whisky industry is expected to provide frontline NHS workers with 50 million litres of hand sanitiser over the next two months.
To help in the fight against the coronavirus, a number of distilleries and breweries around Scotland have turned around their production to produce the product.
A dedicated hand sanitiser portal, set up by the Scotch Whisky Association (SWA), lists more than 19 producers as having made the change – including Orkney Distilling and Pernod Ricard which makes The Glenlivet.
The portal is helping organisations seeking sanitiser stay connected to the distillers, suppliers and distributors.
An SWA spokesperson said: “A fortnight ago the SWA launched an online portal to help with the supply of hand sanitiser to health and social services, emergency services, local communities and other industries in need of it across the UK. In doing so, our industry is keen to play its full role in fighting the coronavirus.
“Over the next two months the industry is providing over 12m litres of ethanol for the production of more than 50m bottles of hand sanitiser for use by frontline health services in the UK.
“This is in addition to the hand sanitiser that many distilleries are producing to support local communities, local care homes, councils and key services. Demand is very high at many levels, and distillers are responding accordingly.”
Other companies which have switched their production include the Glasgow Distillery Company, William Grant & Sons and BrewDog.
Liam Hughes, chief executive and co-founder of the Glasgow Distillery, said “in one day alone, over 20 care homes across Glasgow and the west of Scotland got in touch with me to ask if we were going to be producing hand sanitiser, showing just how serious this problem has become”.
Hughes added the firm only charges what it costs to produce to those who can afford to pay it, “and donating to those charities and organisations which cannot”.
He went on: “Like many of our distilling companions across Scotland and beyond, we are looking to support our local communities in any way we can at the moment."
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