Your organisation's purpose:
We are Hertfordshire’s first gin distillery named after a rare, local rock formation – Puddingstone Distillery. Our core gin range is the multi-award winning Campfire Gin. A four strong range of heritage gin styles. These are complemented throughout the year with limited and special edition collaboration gins. We aim to be the gin of choice for Hertfordshire residents and visitors.
What is your impact initiative?
We’re driven to produce a gin of an exceptional and inspirational nature, created with a mindfulness of community and environment, with an aspiration to invigorate your senses, lead you on adventures near and far, discover simple pleasures and connect with kindred spirits.
The impact your initiative has had:
With multiple impact initiatives within our gin production process each one contributes to lower energy and water usage and reduced waste. We relaunched our bottle in 2021 and increased the volume from 50cl to 70cl. We retained the same bottle style which is made from 40% recycled glass. It’s one of the lightest bottles in its class without a large plug of glass in the bottle. Less glass equates to less raw material being required and a reduced carbon footprint during production, transit and recycling.
Our Campfire Gin bottle labels are printed just eight miles from the distillery – again reducing transportation. The paper material is 30% recycled fibre and is from a FSC certified supplier. This includes the neck watch strap anti-tamper labels too. Occasionally you might see what looks like a plastic anti-tamper seal on our limited edition bottles. These are made from compostable plastic.
Cork is the bark material of the Quercus suber tree (cork oak). Whilst it is seen as a sustainable product and one of the best materials for bottle closures it does take around approx 10 years for the bark to grow thick enough for harvesting. Our stopper is made from recycled cork with a wood top made from FSC certified wood.
All our online and trade orders are delivered in plastic free packaging.
For our direct to consumer offering we have a bottle refill scheme at the distillery. Each time a bottle is returned and refilled the customer makes a saving on the bottle price. We also have a pouch refill scheme for our on-trade customers. Whilst our bottle is made from 40% recycled glass the more we can re-use the bottles the better. It takes time, uses transportation fuel and manufacturing energy to re-introduce recycled glass back into the system and with less virgin material available the quickest route to recycling our bottles is to bring them back to the distillery for a refill.
Our collaborations with local wildlife and conservation charities such as Herts & Middlesex Wildlife Trust and The Box Moor Trust enable us to help raise their profiles. Gins produced in collaboration direct a spotlight on their work not just to our local customers but also to the rest of the UK with via sales and social media and social media world-wide.
Have you observed any direct benefits to your business or organisation as a result of the initiative?
Yes definitely. Both our direct to consumer and trade refill schemes have resulted in an increase in customer loyalty. Given that a large percentage of the price of gin is VAT and alcohol duty the small increase in margin buying direct from us makes a more significant difference to us overall.
Have you observed any benefits to your visitors as a result of the initiative?
Yes with the refill schemes customers make a saving on the cost of the gin. They also know that by re-using the bottle they are reducing their own carbon footprint. For each of the charity collaborations we donate £2 from each bottle sold back to the respective charity. Many people choose to purchase those gins in order to directly support the wildlife and conservation charities.
What category/categories does your initiative fall under?
- Reducing energy use
- Food for Good – reducing food miles, local seasonal produce, plant-based & organic
- Reducing waste
- Nature positive initiatives – conserving, preserving or restoring landscapes, habitats & wildlife
- Minimising water use & water pollution
- Local job creation
Address:
Unit 1 Artisan Workshop, Lower Icknield Way, Tring, Herts HP23 4NT
Website:
www.puddingstonedistillery.com
Contact email address:
hello@puddingstonedistillery.com
