Beau’s Natural Brewery in Vankleek Hill is teaming up with Dunrobin Distilleries of Ottawa to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic. They will transform Beau’s excess inventory into the hand sanitizer to supply front-line healthcare workers and others in the essential services sectors.
“We didn’t want to be idle victims of the pandemic, so we took action,” stated Steve Beauchesne, co-founder and CEO of Beau’s Brewery. “By partnering with Dunrobin to produce hand sanitizer, Beau’s becomes a meaningful part of the fight against COVID-19 and our recovery from it.”
“We understand the importance of the situation and the unique opportunity available to us by being one of the few companies able to produce a hand sanitizer,” stated Adrian Spitzer, Dunrobin cofounder.
Beau’s has several thousand kegs of beer in inventory that it can no longer sell to bars and restaurants. But that beer can serve as the base needed to distill into pure alcohol which, with the addition of other ingredients, will become an extra-strength hand sanitizer.
Dunrobin provided a distilling unit the company had bought for its new facility in Stittsville. The hand-sanitizer manufacturing will take place at Beau’s Vankleek Hill site, which has the building space available and the electrical supply system suitable to run the distiller.
The finished sanitizer will be packaged on-site in three-litre bulk containers for shipment to hospitals and other front line essential service outfits in Ontario. A portion of the sanitizer will be donated to non-profit outfits and other groups that work with people in the “most vulnerable sectors” of Ontario’s communities.
“Only through this partnership with Beau’s were we able to pivot and act so quickly,” stated Spitzer. “They had the resources and the facility to help increase production and accelerate our processes.”
The distiller went into operation mid-April and packaging and shipping of the first loads of hand sanitizer should begin the end of April or beginning of May. The challenge will be to create enough supply to meet the expected demand.
“We know that wherever this sanitizer goes,” stated Beauchesne, “it will make a real difference in the health outcomes in those communities.”
