Standard Chartered has announced that Kasapreko Company Ltd (KCL) has become its first client to tap into the bank’s $1bn financing commitment to help companies tackling COVID-19. KCL, which makes the popular Alomo Bitters brand, will set up a production facility for alcohol based hand sanitisers for use in Ghana.

KCL was founded in 1999 and makes alcoholic bitters, carbonated soft drinks, energy drinks and bottled waters. As a response to demand for affordable hand sanitisers, the company switched production in March 2020 to mass produce hand sanitisers. The $7.4m loan facility will allow the company to expand and install production capacity for over 200,000 bottles of hand sanitiser a day.

In May, KCL commenced operations at its new factory in the Ashanti Regional town of Tanoso, developed under the Ghanian government’s One District, One Factory flagship (1D1F) programme. Its 10,000m² site has three production lines installed and is capable of producing 85,000 bottles per hour of 20 different products.