Jones and Smith Distillery at Spring Hill to produce hand sanitiser for Orange region

The family-run distillery run at Spring Hill has responded to calls from businesses and individuals alike to help provide much needed medical-grade hand sanitiser.

Normally it takes 12 months to get set up for a new venture, but Jones and Smith Distillery co-owner Kylie Smith said they'd been able to switch production in under a month.

"There's a shortage right across the board and a lot of people are running out pretty quickly," she said.

The family-run distillery, run by Mrs Smith, her husband Nic and her parents Dot and Tony, will be pumping out 500ml bottles for individuals and 20 litre drums for businesses from next week if all goes to plan.

Certain ingredients for creating the hand sanitiser have been in short supply across the country, and while Mrs Smith said they'd been able to get their hands on them, when a second run of hand sanitiser could be put together would depend on that.

However, they thought it was "the right thing to do".

"I think if you've got the ability to help you need to," she said.

"Everyone needs to do their bit, whether that's staying home or in our case working on some hand sanitiser.

"It's been an uncertain time for everyone and a lot of people have been prepping for worst-case scenarios, people have been asking for it and it's obviously needed."

She said businesses all across the city had got in touch to find out if they could get their hands on santisier, which has been in high demand from nearly every business which has stayed open.

However, Mrs Smith said it would be available to both businesses and for general sale - and although limits would be put in place on how much people could buy, it'll be available on their website with free delivery in Orange.

Tyres Plus manager Edward Newton has been selling hand sanitiser locally after he saw businesses in need across the city.

The Tyres Plus head office let franchises know they would have medical grade hand sanitiser available after chemicals which would have normally gone into products - such as ethanol - not needed due to a massive drop in demand.

Mr Newton has been buying the sanitiser in bulk and selling it in Orange, driving to Goulburn to pick up deliveries.

While plenty of businesses - doctor's surgeries, factories, dentists, ambulances and more - had purchased sanitiser, he copped flak online for "price gouging", which he hit back at, pointing the finger at wildly fluctuating prices from supplies in Melbourne and at outlets in Orange selling hand sanitiser for "ridiculous" prices.

He said the demand had absolutely gone through the roof in the past few weeks, and was happy to do what he could to help.