SYRACUSE — Businesses and consumers are scrambling to obtain hand sanitizer anywhere they can amid the coronavirus pandemic. Supply chains aren’t able to meet the overwhelming demand.

Clean All, a 95-year-old Syracuse company that produces swimming pool sanitizing chemicals and janitorial cleaning products like bleach, says it can help by offering make-your-own liquid sanitizer kits.

Sev Gonnella, division manager at Clean All, a unit of Salina–based Solvents and Petroleum Service, Inc., says a number of area businesses and organizations that deal with the public have been calling, asking about hand sanitizer. He declined to name them but said they included companies in the hospitality and health-care fields.

The problem is consumer-hygiene products, like hand sanitizers, are regulated by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA). The chemicals Clean All produces are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “We don’t have an existing relationship with the FDA,” says Gonnella.

He says it would take at least a few weeks of paperwork to obtain FDA approval in order to package and sell a finished hand-sanitizer product to consumers.

The company came up with another solution that could help immediately. Since Clean All already works with all the chemical ingredients needed to make hand sanitizer, it decided bundle them up into kits with instructions that allow buyers to make their own.

Gonnella says his firm did not have to get regulatory approval for this product. “We’re just providing the pieces for the consumer to put it together. They’re making their own,” he notes.

The one-gallon and three-gallon kits include the raw materials, in the correct strengths and proportions, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) formula. That includes isopropyl alcohol (99.8 percent), hydrogen peroxide, glycerin, directions for mixing and WHO references, labels for the finished product, and an 8-oz refillable spray bottle (three in a case).

Clean All is charging $32 for a one-gallon kit (equivalent to $2 for an 8-oz bottle) and $84 for a three-gallon kit (which equals $1.75 for an 8 oz bottle).

The company is selling the kits through its store at 838 Erie Blvd. West on Syracuse’s near westside and taking bulk orders over the phone.

In the production facility in the back of the building, Gonnella says he has a crew of seven employees working two shifts a day. He expected them to produce roughly 150 three-gallon kits and 50 one-gallon kits per day.

Clean All has 15 employees, while Solvents & Petroleum Services (SPS) has nearly 100 employees total, including the Clean All workforce.

Clean All was founded in 1925 by Severino Gonnella and his mother, Amelia, in 1925. It manufactures sanitizing products for use in a variety of applications such as commercial kitchens, hotels, schools, and swimming pools. In 2014, Clean All was acquired by SPS. 

The findings of a new monthly survey appear to indicate the first signs that New York manufacturing activity is getting hit hard by the impact of the global concerns about the coronavirus pandemic.

The Empire State Manufacturing Survey general business-conditions index fell 34 points to -21.5 in March, “its largest point drop on record” and “its lowest level since 2009,” the Federal Reserve Bank of New York said in its March 16 survey report. 

Economists had expected a reading of 4.8, MarketWatch reported, citing a survey by Econoday.

The Empire State general business-conditions index had climbed 8 points to 12.9 in February, its highest level in nine months. That was before the coronavirus crisis fully erupted.

The March negative reading, based on firms responding to the survey, indicates business activity fell in New York. A negative index number indicates a decline in the sector, while a positive reading shows expansion or growth in manufacturing activity. 

The survey found 20 percent of respondents reported that conditions had improved over the month, while 42 percent said that conditions had worsened, the New York Fed said.

Survey details

The new-orders index turned negative, falling 31 points to -9.3, indicating that orders fell. The shipments index moved down to -1.7, indicating that shipments were little changed. Delivery times were slightly longer and inventories were somewhat higher.

The index for number of employees slipped 8 points to -1.5, indicating that employment levels were little changed over the month. 

The average workweek fell to -10.6, a sign that the average workweek “was shorter,” the New York Fed said. The prices-paid index held steady at 24.5, suggesting that input prices increased at the same pace as last month. The prices-received index slipped 7 points to 10.1, pointing to a “deceleration in selling price increases.”

Firms no longer expect general business conditions to be better over the next six months. 

The index for future business conditions declined 22 points to 1.2, its lowest level since 2009. The indexes for future new orders and future shipments fell, but “remained firmly positive,” suggesting that firms expect orders and shipments to be higher compared with this month’s levels. 

The capital-expenditures index dipped 3 points to 18.7, and the technology-spending index fell 7 points to 14.4.

The New York Fed distributes the Empire State Manufacturing Survey on the first day of each month to the same pool of about 200 manufacturing executives in New York. On average, about 100 executives return responses.