This article comes from a Press Release from Blume Distillation, LLC.

Watsonville acupuncturist Suzanne Snyder L.Ac., her husband Fred Vasquez, and Nurse Elizabeth von der Ahe have teamed up with Monterey Bay Renewable Fuels 1 (MBRF1) a Watsonville-based Biorefinery company, working to produce high-grade alcohol-based sanitizer products.

Their plan is to deliver critical sanitizer supplies to the Navajo Reservation, where there is a dire need for basic medical supplies (sanitizers, disinfectants, and masks) as well as running water, electricity and food. Based on 2018 American Community Survey Data pulled from the US Census, there are an estimated 20,070 households on the Navajo Nation lacking complete plumbing facilities.

Now, the sanitizer is ready to ship, with the help of Santa Cruz-based Cloud Brigade. (CEO of Cloud Brigade, Chris Miller, has also been working tirelessly on Cruz One, a volunteer-based virtual IT help desk platform for local schools. Read about that story here.)

MBRF1 licenses Blume technology, which produces pure alcohol from locally sourced and primarily organic surplus food and crop ingredients. Now they’re bringing hand sanitizer to market at a fraction of the price of other sanitizers.

“We have no interest in opportunistic pricing and are delighted to be able to make our donation to the Navajo Nation, along with the assurance that we will provide all the sanitizer we can to help stem this horrific tide,” Blume says.

Snyder contacted Blume to explore the possibility of bringing sanitizer from MBRF1 to the Reservation, delivered by van der Ahe who is traveling through the Reservation on her way to to New Mexico (where she’ll work in Labor and Delivery at Los Alamos Medical Center).

Blume has been distilling up to 200-proof alcohol from local fruits and crop waste for years, but only for trials. Until now, their sanitizing products hadn’t been commercially produced or sold.

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About Blume Distillation LLC

Blume Distillation LLC is a leading provider of world-class, appropriate-scale biorefinery/distillation solutions to produce alcohol fuel from a diversity of available waste and surplus resources. The company is a technology partner of the United Nations’ Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, and works with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Partnership for Clean Indoor Air (PCIA), the Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and the Department of Energy’s Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas (ECPA) to help solve one of the most pressing economic, social and environmental challenges of our time: the need for localized, renewable and clean energy. For information visit BlumeDistillation.com.