Distillery steps up to supply alcohol to local market

Barbadians can stop panic buying alcohol since enough is being produced on the island.

While last weekend pharmacies and supermarkets were sold out of alcohol the West Indies Rum Distillery has made sure that the commodity is back on the shelves.

Highly concentrated alcohol is needed to produce the required grade hand sanitizer which has been recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to fight against the spread of the novel COVID-19 which has been wreaking havoc across the globe.

According to West Indies Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Andrew Hassell the distillery which supplies the local retail trade and government agencies with surgical alcohol has been producing 40 000 litres per alcohol in recent days to meet the national demand.

During an interview with Barbados TODAY, Hassell said that following a request from critical agencies, the distillery has donated 55 gallons of hand sanitizer to each Fire Station on the island and also to the COVID isolation centers, and the Customs Department.

“We do this business and we could produce about 40 000 litres of alcohol a day and we know Barbadians are panic buying alcohol but there is no need to because we are a huge distillery. We are one of the largest distilleries in CARICOM and we can more than produce enough alcohol for Barbados. So the little movement where there wasn’t any on the shelves is just because we sell it to the pharmacies and Collins etc, it takes them a couple of days to bottle it. So when there was that initial rush, they just did not have enough,” Hassell said.

“But we are constantly now supplying Collins and Massy and all the different pharmacies that you would normally get alcohol from and they are bottling it quickly. Once we can still continue to go to work and the island doesn’t get shut down, there will be no shortage of alcohol and we are not trying to push the alcohol because we think that soap and water works well,” he added.

The Chief Executive Officer said though the distillery was pleased to be able to supply the Fire Service with the hand sanitizer at a critical time, it is not in the business of producing the product. He also stressed that the Distillery does not sell alcohol directly to members of the general public.

“There is a young gentleman in our warehouse, his name is Dexter Gibbons and he would have helped to do the [hand sanitizer] blend and he went and made the donation to the Fire Service.

“Because Barbadians are panicking, our staff are working around the clock. There is not normally this huge demand for this type of alcohol so our staff is working over time and at night so people could calm down,” Hassell said.
anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb