ARISAIG: It has been a sobering reality since the beginning of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, disinfectants and sanitizers have been flying off the shelves in high demand while being in short supply.
However, a resourceful craft distiller was well-positioned to swiftly pivot from distilling batches of alcohol, to now brewing batches of hand sanitizer.
As the virus spread into Canada and now throughout Nova Scotia, the associated panic-buying that came with it has made the product virtually impossible to find.
“It’s been, in one word – crazy,” Thomas Steinhart told The Reporter. “The phone hasn’t stopped ringing yet – people want to buy everything we have.”
Despite tap rooms and tasting rooms being closed out of abundance of caution, many distillery storefronts remain open for pickup orders, and on March 16 a shipment of 8,000 bottles arrived at the Arisaig-based, Steinhart Distillery as they began transitioning from making booze to the production of hand sanitizer. A few days later they recieved a shipment of 100,000.
“We have completely stopped distilling anything else – we are just doing hand sanitizer,” Steinhart said. “Supply chains are really hard right now, everybody is buying everything.”
During the winter months, the distillery plans for a slowdown but his team would remain hard at work building inventory for their warehouse but their transition to sanitizers has allowed him to stay in business and keep his employees during this unprecedented time; when many others simply can’t keep employees on the payroll.
It was one of his five winter season employees who came up with the idea of making hand sanitizer as the team brainstormed ways to weather the storm and the market from at the time, the inevitable COVID-19 pandemic.
What followed was a chaotic number of days researching how to properly and safely produce hand sanitizer and calls to his suppliers. Steinhart was unable to locate anyone with pump bottles or an inexpensive plastic option so the sanitizer is going in 200-millimetre mickey glass bottles.
After receiving a permit to produce sanitizer on March 13, Steinhart Distillery hit the ground running. Employees are working in two shifts just to get the bottles filled.
In compliance with World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, hand sanitizer alcohol-by-volume must meet or exceed 60 per cent to be effective against COVID-19, and alcohol is something Steinhart currently has in excess supply – with his commercial sales to bars running dry.
Other than some local sales, Steinhart suggested his team is looking to expand their services and are looking into providing home deliveries and would drop orders on customer’s doorsteps to limit interactions and promote social distancing.
Steinhart’s alcohol mixture is kept at 70 per cent and his team developed two products; one mixed with olive oil, which he drove to Halifax personally to pick up, and the other with coconut oil used as a moisturizer.
“I’ve had a lot of response from people telling me how nice it is, how soft the skin is after using it,” he said. “And not drying it out like Purell does.”
Lemon and orange essential oils are used to enhance the aroma.
“It’s all natural. It smells delicious – everybody just loves the coconut,” he said. “We don’t use emulsifiers, it has a little drawback, if the coconut oil gets too cold it’ll solidify, so you have to heat it up again by giving it a little shake, putting it in your pocket, or running it under some warm water.”
Cautioning that he’s not price gouging, nor a large factory dedicated to mass production, the bottles will sell for $15 and can be purchased through their Web site: https://www.steinhartdistillery.com/shop and in return he’ll donate 20 per cent of the proceeds.
And so far, venturing into producing hand sanitizer and filling a void in the market has been rewarding to the Steinhart team, as they’ve had to limit the amount sold to each order as people want to get their hands on whatever he has.
“[Larger companies] don’t care as much; but I’m telling everybody the same,” he said. “Everybody gets x amount, it’s fair and everybody can get some.”
For every 10 bottles purchased, Steinhart is committing two to the area’s local food banks – and so far a little over 10,000 bottles have been donated.
“Our first delivery was to the New Glasgow Food Bank and they cried,” Steinhart said. “We have Feed Nova Scotia on board since last week to do the distribution to food banks and shelters. They received 4,500 bottles yesterday, and other 1,000 are on the way to Newfoundland as we speak.”