Hand sanitiser pump

Source: Unsplash

Diageo said it wanted to help protect front-line healthcare professionals

  • The booze giant will deliver 96% grain neutral spirit to hand sanitiser producers free of charge

  • It comes as spirit makers including BrewDog switch to alcohol gel production to help meet demand

 

Booze giant Diageo has pledged to donate up to two million litres of alcohol to manufacturers of hand sanitiser.

It will provide grain neutral spirit – a 96% abv ethyl alcohol used primarily in vodka and gin production – free of charge to hand sanitiser producers in “multiple countries”, in a bid to help overcome the shortage of the product in healthcare systems.

Diageo said the donation would enable the production of “more than eight million 250ml bottles of hand sanitiser”.

It was already engaged with national and local governments across the countries in which it has “major distilling operations”, it added. These include the UK, Ireland, Italy, the US, Brazil, Kenya, India and Australia.

The spirit would be available “according to local circumstances”, which would “ensure the donation is used for maximum impact in protecting health workers and patients and that sanitiser reaches the front line as quickly as possible”.

Diageo CEO Ivan Menezes said the company was “determined to do what we can to help protect” healthcare workers and that donating grain neutral spirit was “the quickest and most effective way for us to meet the surging demand for hand sanitiser around the world”.

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