How hand sanitizer may have saved the day at Deep Roots Distillery

When Deep Roots Distillery made the impromptu decision last March to pivot from creating liquor to crafting hand sanitizer, its owner thought the move would last just a couple of weeks.

"We're in the business of making cocktail drinks and spirits and so we're not in the business..." Mike Beamish corrects himself, "We weren't in the business of making health-related products."

Now, over a year later, hand sanitizer may have saved the day in more ways than one.

"That would have been the last thing from my mind if you had asked me 14 months ago."

According to Beamish, a good portion of Deep Roots' annual alcohol sales comeduring tourist season. But with the province open to just Atlantic Canada at that timeand COVID-19 lingering in the background the season wasn't all what it was normally cut out to be.

"Our sales on our traditional alcohol products were down, probably down about 70 per cent. And so that was quite a hit," he said.

That being said, the company still came out on top. The secret ingredient? Hand sanitizer.

"At the end of the year when we look back on our financials, we were probably about 25 percent up," he said.

However, salesfor sanitizer diddrop dramatically in the fall as larger suppliersfromaround the world started catching up.

"Definitely the demand for the local product went down as soon as the imported stuff started to fill the shelves."

'Are you guys making sanitizer?'

Deep Roots Distillery wasn't the only company to make the switch. As COVID-19 crawled across the globe, sanitizers flew off the shelves at instantaneous speeds. In December, CBC News estimated dozens of distillers shifted to making sanitizers several of them providing the disinfectant for free.

"It just wasn't available. So fortunately, we made it available," said Beamish.

Beamish was vacationing in Florida when COVID-19 first hit P.E.I.in mid-March last year. Stores in Charlottetown were already running low on the product and Beamish's phone began to ring.

"He said, 'are you guys making sanitizer? We need some.' I said, 'Well, no, but you know what? I got alcohol. That's what we do.'

The day after stepping off the plane Beamishheadedinto isolation andwent to work attempting to create a disinfectant.

"We worked with the Bio Food Tech Centrein Charlottetown to help us with the formulations to make sure we were getting the science right," he said.

"It took ... about two weeks to get everything together, the formulation, the approvals and so then we started selling it."

Next mission

Beamish said he is now working on a new endeavour a gel sanitizer.

"We had quite a few organizations tell us that they would have preferred a gel," he said.

Beamish said it's been over three months since theproduct was submitted to Health Canada for review.

"We're ready to produce a product. We've got all the ingredients," saidBeamish.

But until he gets feedback from Health Canada the process is "stuck in Limbo," Beamishsaid.

Still, he said he hopes to see the new product on the shelves this summer andplans on continuing to create bothliquor and hand sanitizer for the time being.

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