Call to businesses to buy British to ensure quality and supply of PPE to ensure customer and staff confidence

As Britain gradually gets back to work, Scottish-based hand liquid sanitizer manufacturer ClearWater Hygiene is urging companies and businesses of all shapes and sizes to source locally and back quality British-made PPE products and services. Organisations need to ensure that they are rigorous in securing the highest standard of sanitizer and associated support to protect their workforce and their customers – one that is at least 80 per cent ethanol and meets WHO guidelines. Getting this right is going to be vital for confidence and commercial success across all sectors of the UK economy.

Over the past 3 months, a large volume of questionable PPE product has come into the UK from China and Turkey. As Andrew Montague chief executive officer of ClearWater Hygiene says, this has necessarily caused people to re-evaluate their attitudes – particularly as anything less than hospital grade should be discarded to ensure maximum protection:

“One of the major things to come out of the pandemic is the need to focus on manufacturing in Britain. It has really focused people on the requirements for products to be local and high-quality: that is to say, available and high-performance.

In addition to this, there is an expectation of a fair and reasonable price. This is what ClearWater has focused on from the beginning, and it has taken us from a standing start in March to our current weekly production level of 900,000 litres per week.”

According to Andrew Montague, the same approach to quality has to extend to all areas, including supply of PPE services:

“Quality of supply and service must go hand-in-hand. Business continuity is going to be even more critical for all businesses – and PPE products and services, manufactured and delivered in Britain, are central to securing it. If you are running a business, you have to be completely sure that you are not going to be faced with either a product or supply failure: if that happens, you will simply not be able to operate. This could mean the difference between surviving and not making it through the difficult times ahead.”

The advice from ClearWater is that companies should look to source locally and from suppliers who can demonstrate that their product meets European standards and follows directly WHO guidelines. All orders to suppliers should underline the requirement to meet EN1500/EN1276 certification.

ClearWater Hygiene was formed in Edinburgh in March 2020 to help meet the pressing need for liquid hand sanitizer among frontline workers. From the outset, the company has focused on ensuring that the supply chain is totally secure and UK-based: the product is distilled in Scotland, bottled in England and made in Britain.

ClearWater has supplied clients that range from the NHS to major grocery retailers. Its formulation is an 80% ethanol liquid hand sanitiser, which meets WHO guidelines and the exacting European Norm 1500 standard – ensuring its effectiveness in the frontline fight against COVID-19.