Nicola Sturgeon has praised the “hugely important” work done by Stonehaven company Macphie, which is bottling enough hand sanitiser to supply Scotland’s NHS and care sector.
The first minister mentioned the firm, based on the Glenbervie Estate, at her daily coronavirus briefing as she gave her “heartfelt thanks” to businesses contributing to the fight against the pandemic.
Macphie, which has made its name as a food and ingredient manufacturer, was one of more than 1,600 Scottish firms or individuals to answer a call for help issued to the business community around a month ago.
Since then it has got in tow with Grangemouth-based Calachem, which is producing hundreds of thousands of litres of the sanitiser, which is made from denatured alcohol provided by whisky company Whyte and Mackay.
Ms Sturgeon said the supply chain had been set up in an “incredibly short space of time” and added that it had already produced 20,000 litres of hand sanitiser.
Over the next four weeks, Ms Sturgeon said the businesses would manufacture and bottle 560,000 litres which would be “enough to meet the needs of Scotland’s entire health and social care sector”.
She also paid tribute to Alpa Solway in Annan, which was supplying more than one million visors to the NHS.
“These companies and many more are playing a critical part in our overall collective national endeavour to tackle this crisis and I want to put on record today my heartfelt thanks to each and every one,” Ms Sturgeon said.
