5 minute read
Brewer's Viewpoint Jiddler’s Tipple’s Jacob Liddle outlines his journey to sustainability
S USTAINABILIT Y IN BREWING
Jacob Liddle
Jacob Liddle, the founder of Jiddler’s Tipple brewery, takes us through some of the steps on his journey to become a more sustainable operation…
Who are we?
My name is Jacob Liddle, The Jiddler, and I am the founder of Jiddler’s Tipple! I launched Jiddler’s Tipple in October 2019 after falling in love with homebrewing in 2017. I set out with the aim of making the most delicious session beer you could get your hands on. That’s why all our core range beers are 3.8%. We pack them full of flavour and body despite being a little lower in ABV. That way you can enjoy a few extra beers without feeling wobbly! It took a few years to get the business off the ground, but in February 2022 I quit my job and went full-time beer baron. I now lovingly develop every recipe on a test kit at home in Turnpike Lane, before brewing the perfect pints at a commercial scale. We don’t like to brag about our beers too much, so we get world renowned beer judges to do it for us(!). The beers have all won awards across the London Beer Competition, World Beer Competition, and Great Taste Awards as well as securing awards for our brand and design. We’re a super small team, and I’m currently the only paid member of staff. Our Head of HR is my ex-racer greyhound, Chas. He looks after the wellbeing of all the friends and business partners who make Jiddler’s Tipple such a great success story.
Why we are green
As a fledging business, we wanted to start on the right foot and do as much as possible to be sustainable in the long term. Environmental issues are close to my heart (I must admit, initially inspired by my partner Lauren), and we keep our home as low/no waste as possible. Also now that I have a daughter, Robin, I want to make sure my business does as little damage to the world I’ll leave behind for her. At the same time we recognise that being a sustainable business will also appeal to our target audience and customers, and be beneficial in a crowded beer market.
Going plastic free
The first thing we wanted to do was ensure that the product itself was as eco as possible, on the premise that the little things make a big difference, especially as the business grows. So we decided to can all of our beers rather than use glass bottles. Metal is not only infinitely recyclable but it takes less energy to recycle than glass (apparently up to 90% less energy in some cases). Metal is also significantly lighter, meaning less fuel usage during transportation and a lower carbon footprint. We then decided to paper labels made out of recycled paper rather than plastic. This does increase our unit price cost, but it was a no brainer for us. We all know the current single use plastic crisis is huge. Plastic is a huge contributing factor to global warming as well as sticking around in the environment forever and harming wildlife. Not to mention it leaks chemical into our water systems, and I need clean water to make good beer! It just doesn’t make sense to use plastic if you don’t have to. It’s 2022 after all, we’ve got to keep up. It was quite difficult to find a label composition that provided the quality and longevity of plastic. We worked with our label provider (Label Net) and tested a few different solutions. Unfortunately, if you use standard paper labels on cans they tend to wrinkle and distort during the packaging process due to the contact with water. On top off this, you need to use a special water-resistant adhesive. After a few botched batches of cans that looked a bit wrinkly we found an environmentally friendly solution that worked. Coating the labels in a water based varnish protected the paper and meant they still looked great when on the cans. We were very happy to have found a paperbased solution for our cans.
It then also occurred to us to use paper tape on our packaging rather than plastic tape, thus eliminating plastic usage in our packaging.
Going Vegan
The next step we took was to make our beers Vegan. This reduces our impact on the planet but also makes us more accessible to our customers, as the percentage of people who are Vegan in the UK grows considerably every year. Also, Deborah Meaden is Vegan, and I bloody love Dragon’s Den.
Going carbon positive
The final thing we did (for now), was to invest in Carbon offsetting with TIST. We wanted to build in carbon offsetting from the start so it’s part of Jiddler’s Tipple DNA. We decided to offset 25% more carbon than Jiddler’s Tipple produces so that we’re not just net-zero impact, but we’re giving something back too. We used a sustainability consultant to make sure we were getting it right, and chose TIST (The International Small Group and Tree Planting Programme) as one of the best options. Firstly, their carbon credits have been validated and audited so the carbon has already been captured and removed from the atmosphere. We didn’t want to take the risk of working with someone or making a pledge that doesn’t get fulfilled.
Secondly, the TIST farmers in developing countries receive 70% of the net profits from the sale of the credits. This means the money from carbon offsetting is going back to the farmers local economy which significantly helps their standard of living. As an organisation TIST have already offset 9million tonnes of carbon with their partners, of which we are one. So before we knew it, we’d taken lots of steps along the way which meant that we could credibly state that we are an eco-friendly business. So many people have told us that we need to talk about this more in our marketing and comms activity. We didn’t initially set out on this journey to be more attractive to our customers, but since making these decisions we’ve realised how beneficial it can be in terms of gaining new business and customers.
