Brands in the craft brewing industry tend to be independent and creative, looking to stand out with their local, small, and unique product line. Something special and newly-discoverable among the giants. They take great pride in their branding and design, in their ingredients, and in their hometown community.
Craft brewers also tend to be more thoughtful and intentional about where and how they source their ingredients and how they operate their business overall. This includes their approach to environmentally friendly products and practices. And this comes from a genuine place. They want to have a positive effect and influence in their community, associate themselves with local business and artists, and make sure their products align with sustainably-minded practices.
The team behind Eco-friendly Beer Drinker is here to help us identify these practices in the craft brew industry and report on new trends to see what's working and what's not working. They "provide insights on how the brewing industry and its consumers can be environmentally mindful of our earth, the only planet with craft beer."
They recently reported on Fishbone, talking to all the key players in the invention and distribution of these 100% curbside recyclable carriers. You can see the full article here: Fishbone Paperboard Beverage Carriers Are Back, Better Than Ever, and Could Be a Game Changer
An earlier article they published dealt with the challenges of recycling the PakTech HDPE rigid can carriers, currently widely used among craft brewers. But they found that the message about recycling those caps was not matching the reality of actually trying to recycle them.
Over and over, local brewers found that they couldn't produce a high enough volume for the recycling processors to actually accept them. They quoted one brewer who was trying to collect and recycle these as saying: "We have the same problem with our Paktech recycling program that everyone does – nowhere to actually recycle them.” (Read the full article here: How Some Massachusetts Breweries Are Decreasing Plastic Packaging Waste)
In this latest article on the Eco-friendly Beer Drinker site, they find that Fishbone proves to be a worthy - and completely recyclable! - competitor to both HDPE rigid caps and eco-friendly packaging competitors such as CanCollar and EcoRings.
After comparing features between all the can carrier options and measuring the cost, distribution, and scalability, Eco-friendly Beer Drinker concludes with this statement:
"With a sustainability profile comparable to E6PR’s Eco Rings, a cost structure competitive with PakTechs, and printed branding opportunities superior to both, it’s hard to argue that Fishbone’s new can carrier system isn’t best in show."
Thank you to Rob Vandenabeele and his team at Eco-friendly Beer Drinker for so diligently researching Fishbone and all the can carrier options. We are so excited to bring Fishbone to the marketplace and to truly change the game!