Beer brewer Grolsch is using reusable carrier trays at festivals for its beer brands Grolsch and Kornuit. These reusable carrier trays are made of recycled plastic and replaced their cardboard predecessors. Festival organisers are given the opportunity to borrow the reusable trays, with the brewer taking care of shipment, logistics, cleaning and storage. These trays are issued at the festival bars – provided festival guests pay a deposit – and returned later. Following the launch of our circular cups, they want to continue contributing to reducing the amount of plastic waste society produces, to cleaner festival sites, and to improving the overall festival experience.

The Grolsch carrier tray is made from recycled Grolsch crates; the Kornuit carrier tray made of recycled consumer plastic. The new carrier tray is suitable for five drinking cups. The festival visitor can easily store the tray in his or her pocket during the festival to use it more often. The festival site will be considerably cleaner due to the use of these trays from the start of the festival. Hopefully this will also contribute to the awareness of the festival visitor to throw away less waste and hand in more plastic for reuse.

Sustainable character

Ronnie Degen, co-owner Feestfabriek: “Both Mañana Mañana and the Zwarte Cross are again fully committed to sustainability this year, including by keeping the festival’s waste mountain as small as possible and recycling as much waste as possible. Together with our suppliers, we try to take new steps in the field of sustainability and innovation every year. The reusable carry trays fit in seamlessly with this and fit well with the character and goals of our festivals.”

Koert van ‘t Hof, Corporate Affairs Director Grolsch: “Sustainable and responsible entrepreneurship can no longer be ignored in our daily way of working. Through the most diverse projects, we put this into practice. For example, we support the Plastic Promise campaign ‘Never Give Up On Your Cup’. The aim of this campaign is to encourage all festival-goers in the Netherlands to return plastic drinking cups, bottles and now also carrier trays to the bar or drop-off point so that they can be reused or recycled. We strongly encourage circular thinking and action. Our brewery has a recycling rate of no less than 99.8%. This means that almost everything we use in the brewery is reused in the chain. Based on this idea, we also look at festivals and want to contribute to them.”

Royal Grolsch