Top Philippines Ethyl Alcohol Producer Enters U.S. Market with Alcogenix Hand Sanitizers

SAN FRANCISCO, March 5, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- A top ethyl alcohol producer in the Philippines is set to enter the United States market for hand sanitizers, eyeing bulk buyers such as janitorial supply, retail chains, corporations, city public works departments, schools, hospitals, senior living facilities, and public health departments.

The new "Alcogenix" hand sanitizer brand will be initially rolled out in the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in March, said Lucio Tan III, president and COO of Tanduay, the world's top rum maker.

Alcogenix liquid and gel variants will be distributed in the U.S. by Midway Trading Corporation, an importer of Tanduay products in the country, who will also seek regional and national janitorial supply distribution companies with whom to partner. They will be exclusively available in the U.S. with California as its main market entry point, Tan said. Bill's Ace Hardware stores in Concord and Martinez in Northern California is the first large retailer to carry Alcogenix and is recognized for recently starting a social media campaign to promote high grade distillery quality hand sanitizer.

The liquid variant, the Alcogenix Antiseptic Hand Sanitizer, was initially launched as a brief response to rising cases of COVID-19. 2,600 gallons are already in the San Francisco warehouse and ready for same day/next day free delivery.

Manufactured by Absolut Distillers Inc. (ADI), an affiliate of Tanduay, the liquid variant is very high quality and formulated consistent with U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, and has an alcohol strength of 80%.

Its retail SRP is $30 per one-gallon refill bottle for households, hospitals, schools, restaurants, stores, gyms, offices, city buildings, and vehicles, etc.

The other variant, the Alcogenix Hand Sanitizer Gel, will be released to the market at $10 retail SRP per bottle by the second quarter. Intended for personal, household, and corporate use, it has 62% alcohol by volume, and Vitamin E and plant-based moisturizing ingredients.

"When the pandemic started last year, we maximized our facilities in the Philippines to produce ethyl alcohol that we donated to the Department of Health and hospitals," Tan said, further adding that, "With these new products, we hope we can encourage more people to practice good hygiene and promote sanitation to help mitigate the dangers of the pandemic."

Both ADI and Tanduay are under the Lucio Tan Group of Companies, one of the largest conglomerates in the tropical islands of the Philippines. It owns several distilleries in the Philippines' main island groups of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. These distilleries were established to support the main alcohol business, Tanduay Distillers Inc., established in 1854 and the #1 largest scale player in the world at 180 million liters of rum annually, winner of awards for its application of green technologies to protect the environment, and producer of the top-selling rum brand, Tanduay.

SOURCE Tanduay