Does driving a car powered by whisky count as drunk driving…? The jury’s still out on that one, but one thing we know for certain is that a whisky waste powered car is on the horizon!
Making whisky can be surprisingly wasteful, with nearly 85% of the leftover grains and barley from the malting stage going to waste. Wastage is a huge problem in the food and drink industry, but major whisky producer Glenfiddich seems to be on the road to combatting their waste.
Though previously sold off as high-protein cattle feed, Glenfiddich is using its spent grains to create fuel for trucks. The grains are put through ‘anaerobic digestion’, a process in which bacteria break down organic matter and produce biogas. This biogas is what can be substituted for the harmful diesel. Using biogas instead of diesel or other fossil fuels cuts CO2 emissions by over 95% and reduces other harmful particulates and greenhouse gas emissions by up to 99% - now that’s cool. Each truck will displace up to 250 TONNES of CO2 annually!
Glenfiddich currently have four trucks running off this biogas, but plan to convert the other sixteen of their trucks to be biogas fuelled in the near future. At the moment, these trucks are only the ones transporting the spirit to be bottled but William Grant & Sons, Glenfiddich’s parent company, are looking to use the same biogas to power trucks that transport the whisky nationally.
William Grant & Sons have always proclaimed to be at the forefront of reducing carbon emissions in the whisky industry, and they hope to hit carbon net zero targets by 2040. Judging by the way things are going now, that doesn’t seem to be such a huge hurdle anymore.
Glenfiddich distillery director Stuart Watts (pictured above) told Reuters, “The thought process behind this was, ‘what can we do that’s better for us all?’”. This mindset is certainly one that is catching on around the drinks industry as we see more and more brands either utilising waste or becoming carbon neutral (even sometimes carbon negative!).
In Finland, even goose poop has been used to make beer! Check out this article to see how other companies are making their processes a bit more eco-friendly.