AROUND a quarter of a million travel-size bottles of hand sanitizer are to be manufactured by a Co Derry business in the coming days, with some being donated to the elderly and vulnerable.
Liquid Creations, which is based in Newbuildings, usually makes e-liquids for electronic cigarettes but has created a hand sanitizer formula.
At 3pm yesterday, manufacturing was due to get under way after the family-owned company received an order from a client.
The company said it initially planned to make around 250,000 bottles but could make up to one million over the next month.
Managing director Ankush Vij (25), who runs the business with his brother Moheet and other family members, said some of the sanitisers would be donated to groups locally who work with the elderly and vulnerable.
"We donate quite regularly to a lot of different charities locally," he said.
"We will be making in excess of a quarter of a million bottles over the next weeks and will be continuing on. We are hoping to have a million within the next three to four weeks.
"We are planning on selling it locally and donating some to local charities."
The father-of-two said the reason the business had chosen to venture into hand sanitizers was that there are a lot of vulnerable people locally who are in a "life and death" situation.
"Our parents are elderly etc so we wanted to help out elderly people," he said.
"We like to give back. We support a lot of charities, children's charities, we sponsor hospital events and a lot of people have helped us in the past to get to where we are and we want to help people in their time of need.
"We will be getting it out to the community all being well Tuesday."