Upstreet recalls 20,000 bottles of hand sanitizer

Upstreet Craft Brewing is recalling about 20,000 bottles of hand sanitizer it has produced during the COVID-19 pandemic after Health Canada said it could cause skin irritation.

Production manager Joel Walker said Upstreet has contacted its retailers and will have all remaining product shipped back and destroyed. He said the loss in revenue will be "pretty big."

"It's a bit of a disappointment but it was I guess probably an inherent risk when committing to producing, you know, such a product where we're not really used to that type of situation and obviously had we known earlier that this was going to be the result we would have done things differently."

Health Canada said the sanitizers are made with denatured alcohol containing ethyl acetate "which may pose a risk to health."

Unlikely to produce more

Earlier this month, Health Canada ordered another P.E.I. company, BioVectra, to recallits hand sanitizer for similar reasons.

Walker said it's unlikely Upstreet will produce more hand sanitizer at this point, but he said the team is proud of how they rallied together to produce it for Canadians.

"I don't think anyone here at Upstreet has any regrets," he said.

"We sort of snapped to action as quickly as we could. And, you know, obviously a lot of businesses across Canada tried to do the same to sort of help out for the greater good."

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