Georgia craft beer company starts bottling hand sanitizer

We're all adapting to major changes these days, and businesses are no exception. Restaurants are now selling groceries to stay afloat. Here's what a brewery is doing to survive while helping people stay healthy.

Athens brewery Creature Comforts found a solution to provide the community with something they need, keep its employees paid and continue to support local nonprofits.

Their solution? Homemade hand sanitizer in glass beer bottles.

The popular Athens brewery began manufacturing its own hand sanitizer. They come in 16.9-ounce bottles for $8.49 each.

The glass bottles are repurposed from previous limited beer releases. Though the profit margins from the sanitizer are slim, the outcome is proving beneficial.

“As a company, you lean back into your values and what you’re for. Our purpose statement as a company is helping inspire human connection,” said Creature Comforts CEO Chris Herron.

Herron said producing the hand sanitizer has helped them honor that value.

Selling the hand sanitizer through Creature Comfort’s makeshift drive-thru is providing work to the employees and interactions with customers. At a safe distance of course.

Some of the proceeds go toward Creature Comfort’s Get Comfortable Fund, which benefits local nonprofits.

“As a leader of an organization, it’s real easy to talk about your values and your purpose when things are going really well. Where that comes to life is when things take a turn for the worse when things don’t get simple,” Herron said. “How well do you live up to the same values that you were preaching when things were going really good?”

The hand sanitizers were rolled out last week. In just five days, the brewery sold 2,400 and gave away 360 to places in need.

“This will go back as a time of great pride for me and what the company has been able to accomplish just in their mentality, their dedication, their willingness to persevere and find opportunity in the most unlikely places. It’s been a really awesome thing to get to see,” Herron said.

Herron says they're already running low on hand sanitizer, but they plan to have another batch ready to go by this weekend.