Diageo trials its first bespoke circular keg and dispense system for spirits on Smirnoff vodka

Diageo announces the trial of Everpour, an innovative new keg and integrated bottle dispense system, initially with Smirnoff, the world’s number 1 vodka brand2, at selected bars in and around Dublin, Ireland. This trial is the latest sustainability initiative announced as part of a wider drive across Diageo to reduce the carbon emissions of its key brands.

The development of Everpour has been led by Diageo’s Breakthrough Innovation team in partnership with Hodges & Drake, and features reusable kegs which pipe spirits to a dispensing unit. There are four dispensing options to best suit the bar environment. The bespoke innovative technology automatically refills the bottle of Smirnoff once it is placed in the Everpour unit, and once the keg is empty, it is collected, cleaned and refilled by Diageo before being re-distributed to participating bars. After its long lifespan, the unit will be collected by Diageo and the unit will be separated for recycling3

Participating sites in the trial will use stainless-steel kegs in 5 or 17.5 litre sizes of Smirnoff vodka. The expected benefits of Everpour include:

• Each keg is anticipated to reduce the use of a minimum of 500 single-use 70cl glass bottles.

• A potential reduction in carbon emissions by more than 50% per litre of Smirnoff¹.

• Reducing the time needed to switch out and dispose of empty bottles.

• Minimising the storage space needed for Smirnoff bottles.

Stephanie Jacoby, Global Vodka senior vice president at Diageo, celebrated the launch, 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 exploration of different solutions for a more circular economy, depending on market requirements and occasion. It forms part of Diageo’s ongoing work towards its carbon reduction goals in its ESG action plan, Spirit of Progress. Other notable initiatives include the continued rollout of industry solution ecoSPIRITS across multiple markets and recent trials of a bulk delivery solution at the Smukfest festival in Denmark, which removed the use of over 30,000 glass bottles. In addition to Diageo’s support of the initial partnership with the Glass Packaging Institute and GlassKing Recovery & Recycling, Don’t Trash Glass, an on-trade recycling initiative in the US.

Dave Lutkenhaus, global sustainability innovation director at Diageo, 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 Everpour trial will partner with seven outlets in and around Dublin and will run for six weeks. The trial will assess technical feasibility of the Everpour system whilst gathering customer and consumer feedback. The results from the trial will be assessed and integrated into future versions of Everpour before further expected trials.

1. According to an initial screening Life Cycle Analysis conducted by an independent external expert for this trial, compared to existing packaging carbon emissions of Smirnoff 70cl products in Ireland. Additional Life Cycle Analysis will be completed once the Everpour system is ready to scale up to confirm the expected savings and will differ by market.

2. Spirits Business, Brand Champions Report 2024

3. Recyclability assessments are planned post the limited trial and to be confirmed prior to scale.