Our journey continues among the best examples of Green Marketing. To be sustainable and truly protect the environment, it is not always necessary to spend a lot of money. A small American craft brewery is the protagonist of this story that stems from a passion for one’s craft and the desire to make a difference, going beyond the established paths. And the Edible Six Packs Rings are born.
It is an emblematic case and even more interesting if you consider that it was created at zero cost and not by a famous company with large financial resources behind it, but – using the words of one of the founders – by ’a small local brewery in southern Florida created by fishermen, surfers and nature lovers“: Saltwater Brewery.
But how did this small artisanal brewery, in just thirty days and without investing even a dollar, achieve more than 110 million views on social media and over 3.5 billion interactions, making it talk about itself on newspapers like the Guardian and television channels like CNN?
Let’s start with a fact: more than 50% of beer in America comes from cans (about 67 billion cans each year), usually sold in traditional six-pack packaging held together by plastic rings. Over time, we have become increasingly aware that this type of pollution poses a serious threat to wildlife: over a million birds remain trapped in plastic every year, and an unspecified number of fish and sea turtles die from entanglement or damage to their digestive systems clogged by plastic.
The solution, therefore, was to imagine an innovative packaging – the Edible Six Pack Rings – that, instead of killing, could feed the wildlife. This is the first 100% biodegradable, compostable and edible packaging made in the beer industry. But there is more: this type of packaging also fully embodies the zero waste strategy of the circular economy: the rings are, in fact, natural byproducts of the beer production process, being made from waste from wheat and barley.
Within a few months, Saltwater Brewery was contacted by more than fifty craft breweries that expressed interest in using the Edible Six Pack Rings, attracted the attention of industry giants, and inaugurated an innovation process in beer packaging that in subsequent years involved companies such as Corona, Carslberg, Guinness, and Budweiser.
