More than straws

Sustainability in the bar

Sustainability is one of the most important and controversial issues today - both at the bar and in business and politics. New corporate models are laying the groundwork for a different approach to the resources we are confronted with in our daily lives.
Dehydrated fruit and plastic-free straws are just the beginning. Sustainability must not be neglected in the bar either

The egg on the breakfast table, the plastic fork at the snack bar around the corner or the delicious whisky import from the Far East. A topic that is playing an increasingly important role in the bar scene with terms such as "low waste" and "regional" and can also be very attractive for your own wallet.

Where does sustainability start and where does it end? In the bar, we deal with plastic, food, drinks and a lot of packaging. Be it the elaborately packaged spirit, plastic sticks in every shape and variant or simply waste after juice production. Today, the industry and modern techniques in the catering industry offer us a variety of alternatives in terms of use, avoidance and handling of waste.

Increasingly, drinking straws are made from sustainable materials such as bamboo, straw or paper, as well as metal or glass for multiple use. In general, you should not automatically place a drinking straw in every drink, because it is often out of place and can still be brought if desired.

Colourful plastic skewers and stirrers commemorating the "Cocktails and Dreams" bar from the film "Cocktail" can be wonderfully replaced by materials such as metal and pressed wood, which at the same time brings the advantage of a more elegant and high-quality presentation of the drink.

It is not only in relation to disposable items, which are often only used once, that we can act more consciously. For example, when reordering a glass of wine or bottled beer, simply asking whether it needs a new glass saves many trips to the dishwasher. Snack trays, for example, can be refilled instead of being replaced.

"Nose to Tail in the Bar

Cocktail bars are becoming more and more innovative; home-made infusions, lemonades, syrups or shrubs are no longer a rarity. The "from nose to tail" principle also works behind the bar. Before lemons, limes, oranges or other juices are squeezed, they can also be juiced to make homemade syrups or shrubs, which often taste fresher and more honest.

Homemade is at the same time a sales argument and means an enormous relief for the bar operator's wallet in the long run. In addition, offcuts and leftovers can be used to make your own bitters or soda fusions.

Dehydrated fruits or vegetable decorations not only look very interesting, but at the same time a much longer shelf life is guaranteed in contrast to fresh food.

Adjustments like these can save money in return for the possibly slightly more expensive paper straws and refine the service at no extra cost. A sustainable way of working does not necessarily mean higher expenses for the business. In this day and age, it is extremely important to think about our consumption and how we deal with waste and food, and to leave a "conscious" ecological footprint.

Even if it often doesn't seem possible to implement things like this in very large, busy bars, I am convinced that everyone can do their bit on the subject of "sustainability". Some less - others more.

Sustainability in the beverage industry

The fact that plastic straws or twirlers are hardly to be seen in the best cocktail bars worldwide is an impressive development of recent years. In the city of Geneva, "single-use plastic" will be banned in public spaces, i.e. on terraces or takeaways, as of 1 January 2020.

But can we now sit back and be satisfied that we have done what is necessary to combat climate change? The answer should be clear to everyone: No.

The straw has primarily something to do with pollution of the oceans (and only then something to do with climate change). In many places, however, resources, money and CO2 emissions can be saved that are invisible to the guest. For example, the raw material I use for heating and how well the bar is insulated. Glass is recycled in every bar, but what about leftover fruit, coffee grounds, aluminium, pet, paper, cardboard and plastic?

Fresh fruits or fruit juices have (again) brought bar culture to a high level. But lemons and oranges from Europe are not available all year round - let alone limes. Production, transport and storage cause different CO2 emissions depending on origin and season.

There have long been Barkeeper, which use alternatives to lemon and lime juice. Maybe not for the whole range, but at least for some exciting cocktails with vinegar-based shrubs, citric acid or verjus, the juice of unripe grapes.

But how bars can do their part to be more sustainable is only one side of the coin. The other is the answer to the question of what impact climate change will have on the bar scene, and in particular on the products used in bars.

One example is French wine production, which is estimated to be 12 per cent lower than last year due to fire, frost and drought, and wine regions in California are also victims of fire.

Citrus fruits are also threatened by climate change. In America, the "yellow dragon", as the pathogen called "Huanglongbing" (HLB for short) is called, is ravaging citrus trees.

Now pests in agriculture are nothing new, but the problem with climate change is that pests like this leaf flea, which carries the bacterium, can often multiply their fecundity in warmer temperatures.

Climate change will also increase the frequency of extreme weather events - such as in March 2016, when snowfall damaged the agaves in Jalisco. For plants that need more than seven years to mature, this is a serious problem.

At the consumer or behind the bar, these developments will first be reflected in the price and eventually in the quality and availability of these products. High time to address sustainability in the bar.

Product added to shopping cart.
0 Articles - CHF 0.00