Sustainability
Our business practices and values
We believe that lowering our environmental impact and supporting other organizations in our community are two of the most important things we can do as a small business, not just for our community but for the world. Below are a few of the ways we have built our business practices to reflect our values. We are always evolving, learning, and trying to be better, so if you have any suggestions of ways we can improve, or questions that aren’t answered here, please let us know!
True Small Batch Brewing
At Escarpment Kombucha Co., we brew, ferment, carbonate and bottle in batches between 10 and 25 litres, which allows us to create carefully-made kombucha entirely by hand! This method avoids the use of energy-intensive equipment typical of larger breweries (plus, we can adjust each batch until it tastes perfect). We work out of The Kitchen Collective, a non-profit commercial kitchen on King St. E. in central Hamilton that is home to more than a dozen small local businesses. The kitchen’s cooperative structure allows all of our members to share resources like cleaning products, electricity, and natural gas, further lowering our collective carbon footprint.
Local Sustainable Ingredients
All of our ingredients are sourced as locally and organically as possible, with over 85% of the produce and botanicals we use for flavouring being grown pesticide-free and bought directly from the farmer! Our base teas and cane sugar (not grown in Canada) are organic and sourced from Ontario-based wholesalers. Some ingredients, such as rhubarb, staghorn sumac, candy mint, and cedar fronds, we gather and process ourselves through our partnership with Baba Link Organic Farm. Pat and other farmers like Tahlia from Sunfire Herbals connect us to new and interesting ingredients, and inspire us to think local when developing our seasonal flavours!
Zero Waste Packaging
A big part of the appeal of kombucha is that it’s a craft beverage that can be produced with minimal waste. The life cycle of our product is as follows:
Brewing The Tea: The brewing process leaves two compostable by-products - tea leaves and excess SCOBY. These are composted through the City of Hamilton.
Fermentation: All of our fermentation takes place in food-grade reusable vessels, with washable cloth covers to allow the kombucha to breathe. Kegs are refilled and reused each week, and everything is labelled by grease pencil or dry erase marker to further cut down on garbage.
Packaging: All of our products come in reusable glass bottles with recyclable metal caps, which we accept for return via our home delivery service and at certain retailers.
The 355ml bottles use fully compostable seals made from plant-derived cellulose instead of plastic. The bottles are labelled with Lorpon Labels’ Forest Film, a fully recyclable and biodegradable label material that looks great, is long-lasting, and stays on the bottle through dozens of cycles of return, refill and resale. Even better, the labels come on rolls backed with a PET liner that we return to Lorpon for recycling! This means that as long as the bottles are returned or recycled correctly, there is NO source of garbage in our packaging!
The 1L growlers are even better, requiring no extra packaging beyond the bottle and cap. Even the tape we use for packing boxed orders is biodegradable (and cute)!
