Sustainable Spirits!

Dunedin Craft Distillers, now powered by New Zealand's first and only 100% renewable, Toitū climate positive certified electricity!

Since 2020, Dunedin Craft Distillers have diverted over 7.5 tonnes of bread, croissants, raspberry buns, and doughnuts from the landfill to produce the base spirit for their Botanical Gins, Vodka, and Naked Spirit.

Dunedin Craft Distillers are the first distillery in New Zealand and one of only a handful worldwide, to produce botanical spirits from surplus bread and bakery products that would otherwise go to landfill. Their distillery is based in central Dunedin where they sell direct to consumers and offer tastings and distillery tours.

Sue Stockwell and Jenny McDonald, otherwise known as The Dunedin Craft Distillers, with their newly installed still in Roberts Street.

They believe that everyone has a role to play in protecting the environment, and they are committed to minimising the impact of their business on our fragile planet. Traditional alcohol production relies on crops such as barley, wheat, corn, or sugarcane. By using waste bread instead, valuable agricultural resources can be conserved. It was important to them to interrupt the life cycle of grain from the field with overproduction going to the landfill.

While their goal since inception has been to divert bread from landfills, they realised that there are many more things they can do to minimise their impact on the environment. The distillation process requires significant amounts of energy. It takes around three weeks to brew, ferment, distil and filter the alcohol. Further distillation is required to create the botanical flavours traditionally associated with gin. As you can imagine spirits production is highly energy intensive.

A critical part of their journey towards sustainability is acknowledging the energy-intensive process of distillation and looking for alternative energy sources. For this reason, they chose to power their distillery with 100% renewable, Toitū climate positive certified energy supplied by Ecotricity.

It is hugely important to them to know that Ecotricity is third party audited and accredited and is something they want to share with their customers. With the knowledge that their electricity supplier sources only renewable energy, they can now focus on measures to conserve the energy they use and other areas where they can minimise the impact of their business on the environment. It has been an amazing journey and they have even won some awards along the way!

Check out their blog on their commitment to sustainability.