The Isle of Arran Brewery has been shortlisted in the green business category of this week’s SIBA (Society of Independent Brewers) Business Awards.
The beautiful Isle of Arran. Photograph: Ian Cylkowski on Unsplash
The nomination is a direct result of the brewery’s project in collaboration with the Islands Green Recovery Programme, instigated by Zero Waste Scotland.
The project aims to reduce the use of packaging materials in two main areas:
- Reducing shrink wrap and cardboard, usually only used once before being discarded, by investing in a large fleet of bottle crates, which will be used for on-island deliveries to distributors
- Reducing glass usage by introducing a growler filler station, offering up to six beers into growlers (larger, re-sealable, re-usable beer containers), which the brewery will make available to either buy or rent to both island residents and tourists.
The team at Arran Brewery has always been pro-active in trying to make the business of brewing as green as possible, from recycling waste products to composting spent hops and providing spent grain to local farmers as feed for livestock.
Head brewer, Craig Laurie, said: “I have always looked for ways to improve our green credentials, from increasing ingredient utilisation — getting more great quality beer for the same input of raw materials — to reducing waste in bottling, bringing it down from over 5% to around 0.5%, and I am proud that our hard work has been recognised by our peers in the brewing industry.”
Quality manager, Chris Bowen, and chief operating officer, Veronica Michaluk , were behind this particular initiative. Veronica said: “I am very pleased by the way the new team has embraced the need to go that step further in improving our green credentials, which were already well established.”
Chris added: “Our company slogan, which can be found on most of our labels, reads ‘Quality is in our nature’. My aim is to ensure both quality and nature are continually cared for and improved at the brewery, and I am very happy to see our work recognised by our trade body.”
