Carew hand sanitisers remain unsold

Despite last year's flying start with the production of hand sanitisers, state-owned Carew & Co is now struggling to find customers for 60,000 bottles of disinfectant it has in its store.

The lone state distiller started producing hand sanitiser on March 23 last year and made a profit of Tk 1.2 crore in three months to June.

But sales started falling drastically after that thanks to an increased supply of the cleaning agent from private manufacturers and marketers and reduced demand among people, said Abu Saeed, managing director of Carew & Co (Bangladesh).

At the end of June last year, the company had a stock of 100,000 bottles and in the next nine months to March this year it could sell only 40,000 bottles.

"The lack of marketing and a fall in demand are to blame for the decrease in sales," Saeed said.

Carew has the licence to sell spirits, which is the main ingredient for producing hand sanitisers.

The company produces sanitisers by mixing distilled water, colour and scent with it.

The state company began producing the hand rubs when its demand skyrocketed within a short time after the first coronavirus-infected patient was detected in Bangladesh on March 8 in 2020.

The company started selling the product through three approved outlets and 13 of its depots.

The demand for sanitisers has increased again with the emergence of the second wave of coronavirus in the country amid a rise in Covid infections.

In the last 24 hours alone, 83 people died of Covid-19, according to data of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS). With this, the total number of Covid deaths reached 10,952 and the death rate stands at 1.48 per cent, the DGHS said.

But still Carew is hardly getting any buyers for its products now.

"Carew's sanitiser is way effective and cheaper than other products we normally get. But I couldn't find it anywhere nearby after collecting first two bottles from the Suger corporation's Motijheel office," Shahan Shahrior, a regular user of the sanitiser, told The Daily Star.

"I think it can be a profitable venture for a state-owned company. It can serve the people in this pandemic by supplying hand sanitiser at a cheap rate."

But for that the company should make the product available everywhere, he said.

"You can't really ask customers to go to certain places to get Carew's hand sanitisers when nearly dozen other varieties of them are available in the nearest shops."

"Only those who know about the product are buying our sanitiser," said Mazhar-ul-Haq Khan, chief marketing officer of Bangladesh Sugar & Food Industries Corporation (BSFIC), which runs Carew & Co.

"In fact, we did not even work on how to sell the product after its production. That's why our sales slowed."

Khan said his company had contacted online grocery and food product suppliers to sell the sanitisers. "But none showed that much interest in our product."

"We will emphasise more on marketing with the start of production of the new batch of hand sanitisers where we will use a new wrapper."

A proposal to launch new wrappers and sell each 100ml new bottle of the sanitiser at Tk 120 got the go-ahead in a recent board meeting of the company, officials said.

Several companies have the same product to attract buyers in the market, said Arifur Rahman Apu, chairman of the BSFIC.

"If the new sanitiser sprayer bottle is released in the market in a more attractive way, it will become popular among the people."

Carew's managing director said they will sell the unsold products first to avoid any financial loss and then go for new production.