Everpour, an in-house circular keg and bottle dispense system for the on-trade, is now being trialled by Diageo in selected bars in and around Dublin, Ireland.
The system trial is initially being done with Smirnoff, automatically refilling bottles placed in an Everpour unit, a recycling strategy that is claimed to reduce carbon emissions by more than 50% for every litre of the top-selling vodka.
Everpour’s development was led by Diageo’s Breakthrough Innovation team in partnership with Hodges & Drake, and features reusable kegs which pipe spirits to a dispensing unit. Once a keg is empty, it is collected, cleaned and refilled by Diageo before being re-distributed to participating bars.
Participating sites in the trial are using stainless-steel kegs in 5 or 17.5 litre sizes of Smirnoff vodka. Each keg is anticipated to reduce the use of a minimum of 500 single-use 70cl glass bottles.
Global vodka senior vice president at Diageo, Stephanie Jacoby, said: “We’re really excited that Smirnoff is the leading brand on Everpour as we know how important it is to combine convenience for our bartenders and sustainability for our company.
“We continually push the boundaries of what’s traditional in the drinks trade and look forward to learning more about circularity through this exciting trial.”
The Everpour trial is part of Diageo’s ongoing work towards the carbon reduction goals set out in its ESG action plan, Spirit of Progress.
Global sustainability innovation director at Diageo, Dave Lutkenhaus, commented: “This a huge milestone for Diageo to be trialing our first bespoke Diageo-led developed circular economy system for spirits in the on-trade.
“We’ve designed the system building on the years of insights we have from the on-trade with the aim for Everpour to be convenient and desirable for bartenders to use, whilst reducing our carbon emissions. We’re looking forward to seeing the results from the trial to take into our next round of product development.”
The six week trial across seven outlets will assess the technical feasibility of the Everpour system whilst gathering customer and consumer feedback. The results will be assessed and integrated into future versions of Everpour before further expected trials.
