North Austin News

Justin Suriff, who owns the American Vapor Co., has changed his company's production line from producing e-liquids for vaping pens to hand sanitizer to help the nation combat the coronavirus disaster.

Suriff and his partners have decided to name the sanitizer "Naturally Pure Hand Sanitizer."

Suriff told KVUE that the company has temporarily halted the production of e-liquid to put all of its efforts into the production of sanitizer.

“Right now, we aren’t doing any e-liquids," Suriff said. "We feel like this is most important and most vape shops are closed right now anyway, so they’re not selling much e-liquid.”

Suriff and his father, Darrell, say they were in the process of relocating the company to Pflugerville. The idea came when they were unpacking the machinery.

"This is not how we planned on starting the move, but we put everything on hold and we moved all our machines in that were designed to produce e-liquid for vapor and we turned them into machines to produce sanitizer," Darrell Suriff said.

Darrell Suriff, who is also the company CEO, said all of the employees were on board with the change and made the move to help out.

“Most of the employees you see are employees we already had at the lab and/or people who were laid off from their jobs that we brought on here to help us during this crisis," Darrell Suriff said.

Justin Suriff said that the company will be producing hand sanitizer as long as it is needed.

“I expect we’re going to be doing this as long as we can manage the supply chain to continue, which will be the goal as long as society needs it," he said.