Hand sanitizer getting harder to find

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - Fear of the H1N1 virus has Hoosiers reaching for hand sanitizer in record numbers. The supply in some cases is starting to dry up.

Wholesalers, those who sell to business and industry are seeing the biggest impact.

Al Wachter runs Acorn Distributors in Indianapolis.

"We can order, they just won't ship," he said.

Acorn Distributors stocks 5,000 items.

But getting shipments of alcohol based sanitizing products is nearly impossible.

Wachter said, "We order 100 cases, we might get 15."

Acorn's customers are industrial and commercial, places like hospitals, schools and offices. Places where the demand for the product is at a peak.

Wachter founded Acorn Distributors back in 1976 and he said he's never seen anything like this.

"We cannot buy it, we're on allocation, probably the rest of 09. We get maybe 10% of what we can actually use."

And, because he can't get the product from the manufacturer, he has to limit what he sells to his customers.

Wachter said, "We will take care of as much of our present clientele our customers. Right now we can't take on any new business that would not be fair to our existing customers."

In some cases that means big businesses may have to go to the local store to buy some of those small pump bottles to get them through the shortage.

The shortage hasn't hit in your home yet, because it's much easier to make a small pump bottle than it is to make a large hands free dispenser that commercial and industrial clients use.

Wachter said he doesn't expect the shortage to end anytime soon saying it's likely to last into the first quarter of 2010.