How we’re adapting deodorant production lines to make hand sanitiser

Having never manufactured hand sanitiser at our Leeds factory before, we were pleased, on 2 April, to be able to supply our first batch of more than 700 litres to St James’s University Hospital, part of the Leeds Teaching Hospital NHS Trust. Our aim is to donate further product to support the local NHS in the coming weeks.

It’s thanks to the efforts of employees from across Unilever and the rapid response of our suppliers – with materials, packaging and labels – that we have been able to scale up production of the hand sanitiser from laboratory trials to factory production in just four days.

“This has been a massive collective effort by teams within our business and our suppliers, while many are remote working,” says Jason Sutcliffe, Unilever’s Beauty & Personal Care Supply Chain Manager who has been leading this initiative. “We have all wanted to get involved so we can do our bit to help those on the frontline. We’re just pleased we’re able to contribute in this way.”

Team effort by employees, suppliers and partners

With stringent health and safety requirements around the use of ethanol (alcohol) – the main ingredient in hand sanitiser – our Leeds factory was well-placed to start producing supplies quickly, as ethanol is already used in some of the products manufactured at the site.

As well as working on the formulation of the product, we needed to check that all the necessary safety measures were in place and to sanitise the equipment. We then had to source the raw materials and packaging, with some ingredients already on-site and others coming from Unilever facilities elsewhere in the UK and Europe, as well as from third-party suppliers. More than 10,000 bulk containers were shipped to us by our suppliers within just hours of requesting them.

In order to ensure we could make an effective product, and to identify any potential issues, we made a small trial batch in our on-site pilot plant. Experts from across our business were called on to advise on all aspects of producing the hand sanitiser from hygiene regulations, to quality control, to transport safety.

Our design agency and label supplier went over and above to provide labelling, with the necessary regulatory information included to ensure compliance and traceability, in just over a day.

Jon Strachan, VP Supply Chain, Unilever UK & Ireland, says: “With hand sanitiser in short supply and much needed to help protect NHS staff in the fight against coronavirus, we’re pleased to have been able to switch over some of our production at our Leeds deodorant factory to make it there.

“I want to thank our factory team – who pulled out all the stops to get the production up and running – as well as a number of our supply, engineering and logistics partners who have supported us generously and at speed, for making this possible.”

Read more about how Unilever is working with a range of partners in the UK and Ireland to provide help and support to hospitals and communities during the Covid-19 crisis.