Wye Valley Brewery
Wye Valley Brewery is an award-winning family-owned brewery based in Stoke Lacy, Bromyard, a company making the most of Herefordshire's fine British hops for their original craft beers. They employ 74 full time staff. We spoke to their MD Vernon Amor.
The 30 for 2030 initiative was, for us, a great way for companies like ours to share what we do with others, and to learn what they are doing in their own sector. We need everyone to be doing more and this initiative and the conversations it inspires can drive change. For me personally, I believe in the science about climate change and the urgency of this, and I want to leave the planet in a better place for my children.
People are always pleasantly surprised by the sustainable side of our business. At the moment I don't think customers choose beer based on its environmental credentials - it's about taste, quality, price. But I think the sustainable side will become more relevant as time goes on. We are starting to see the conversation around packaging regulations and packaging waste and rightly so.
Visitors do love what they see when they come on tours. How we manage energy or recover water to use elsewhere. For instance, they're fascinated by how we capture the steam as we boil the hops so we can use it to wash the casks and kegs. And, of course, they see our solar PV generating all the electricity we need in the summer months, and at least half of our requirements across the year. In fact, since 2014 we've more than doubled our beer production but at the same time are importing less electricity from the grid than we did ten years ago. We want to keep going in that direction.
What people tend not to see when they visit is the wildlife haven at the back of our site. Over the last four or five years we've created a meadow and wildlife habitat for bees, butterflies, birds and bats. It's beautiful when the cowslips and daisies come out and it's buzzing with pollinators. We are hoping to purchase another seven acres for more Solar PV panels and create more of this habitat around them. It's such an easy thing to do - even if your business has the smallest piece of garden or ground. Rather than have a boring piece of manicured grass, chuck native meadow plants in and watch them come up. They look after themselves and are so good for nature.
Top tip to pass on? I think the thing we've learned and want to pass on is the change required to the National Grid. If you are looking to install renewable electricity generation (solar or wind) you may find your ambitions limited. As above, we're keen to put more solar PV panels in but have been advised the Grid can't take any more energy from us. I'd like to see all businesses making more noise about this - to shout about how it's limiting businesses who want to do the right thing. We all need to think longer term - to go back to building for a long term sustainable future - be it via the renewables we invest in, or how we build premises or package products....
The next thing on our agenda is a new brew house on this site, built in a really sustainable and energy efficient way. We hope to see that happen in the next couple of years. And we want to eliminate fossil fuel usage (traditionally powering the brew house) from our site and go all electric.
There are other business benefits to reap from this approach. For example, in recruitment and retention of staff. We haven't had any problems recruiting in the last five years. I think these days you are selling yourself to prospective employees as much as they are selling themselves to you. We have a new engineer starting and he was especially interested in the sustainability side of what we do and how we are incorporating it into future plans. Young people coming into work will be looking for evidence of what you are doing for the environment.