What are we doing?
The Ribena Team is committed to trying to make a difference to protect and safeguard our environment. Having developed the industry's first 100% recycled plastic bottle, we don't want to just stop there.
What else have we been doing?
We are working closely with WRAP and the recyclers to improve the quality of the recycled PET.
It's not just the bottle we look at when it comes to recycling. We also consider the label (or shrink sleeve) and the cap on the ready to drink bottle to ensure they separate easily from the bottle during recycling. Our bottle caps are also recyclable, but the industry has a way to go before they can be made from purely recycled materials.
The Ribena & Tetra Pak partnership
The Ribena Team is committed to making all our packaging as green as possible. That's why we've joined forces with Tetra Pak who provide us with more environmentally responsible packaging. Currently our cartons supplied by Tetra Pak are sourced from Forestry Stewardship Certified sources (FSC). They are widely recyclable and, when recycled, are used to create a whole range of other paper products. There are more and more places where you can recycle them now - see www.tetrapakrecycling.com for details.
Considering the environment...
Our Ribena growers
We are really proud of the unique British supply chain for Ribena squash. The Ribena Team has a unique relationship with its blackcurrant growers, which on some British farms spans 60 years and three generations.
The long-standing relationship is mutually beneficial with growers receiving long-term contracts and help with the technical aspects of growing. Meanwhile, the Ribena product receives the best blackcurrants available from growers that it knows and trusts.
The Ribena Team and its growers invest in initiatives that involve breeding the best quality blackcurrants and growing the fruit in ways that are environmentally responsible. For example, each farm has a wildlife conservation plan created in association with The Wildlife Trusts, designed to encourage and nurture the farm's wildlife.
Each Ribena blackcurrant bush takes around three years to grow before fruit can be harvested from it and continues to provide fruit for around another 12 years. When the blackcurrants have been picked, most of them are made into juice within 24 hours.
Scottish Crop Research Institute partnership
To help safeguard the quality of its British blackcurrants and farms, the Ribena Team has been working in partnership with the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI) for 15 years. Together we have created an action plan to ensure the continued production of high quality blackcurrants, as well as protecting the flavour of our British produce.
The effect of climate change - more extreme and variable weather - is having a major impact on the British farming industry. Fruit farmers in particular will need to use more resilient and adaptable varieties of crops with plenty of disease resistance in order to ensure their livelihood.
Take blackcurrant growers for example: blackcurrant yields are falling due to milder winters. Despite the fact that blackcurrants have been grown in the UK since the 1800s, in some areas of the country such as Kent and Somerset, two varieties of blackcurrants - Baldwin and Ben Lomond - could disappear in the future.
The Scottish Crop Research Institute's Blackcurrant Breeding Programme in partnership with the makers of Ribena develops new varieties of blackcurrants for commercial cultivation. The programme is based on recurrent selection and backcrossing from seedling populations at SCRI, with initial selections in the first (non-fruiting) year based on vegetative characters, followed by selection on fruiting characters and longer term agronomic traits. Trialling of the most promising seedlings is carried out at sites where commercial large-scale fruit assessments can be made.
Recommendations for release are made after three years' trialling. The aim is to produce a range of cultivars with superior fruit quality, pest and disease resistance and environmental adaptability in a changing climate.
Two new varieties of blackcurrant have been specially bred to withstand the effects of climate change. These are called Ben Vane and Ben Klibreck, and were harvested for the first time in 2007 to mark the 70th birthday harvest of blackcurrants for Ribena. The breeding is done using standard crop husbandry techniques and does not involve any genetic modification or GM technology.
Named after Scottish mountains, Ben Vane and Ben Klibreck are a unique offering to growers who produce blackcurrants for the Ribena drink, and have been released after a successful three-year trial.
Biodiversity plans
For a number of years, the blackcurrant growers have worked together with The Wildlife Trusts - one of the largest conservation charities in the UK - to promote wildlife friendly farming across the blackcurrant farms.
The first stage of this partnership created individual farm plans for each of the blackcurrant growers. These conservation plans and were produced to give a more targeted approach to particular habitats that are found on each farm.
Each farm has its own individual wildlife conservation plan, which includes:
- When and how best to trim hedges
- Erecting bird boxes and bat boxes
- Creating rough grass margins around fields and ponds
- Sowing wild bird-seed mixtures
- Establishing new hedgerows and replacing windbreaks with native shrubs
Species that are known to be present on farms and benefiting from the action plans are the common toad, woodcock, otter, brown hare, yellowhammer, bats and bumblebees, amongst many others.
The success of these plans is measured and evaluated, and so far there have been some excellent results which have made a real difference to the variety and amount of wildlife on Ribena's growers' farms.
The blackcurrant growers for Ribena squash manage an estimated 100 miles of hedgerows in a more wildlife-friendly manner. The Ribena Team also estimates that over 75 hectares of field margins and headland have
been enhanced for local habitat, as a result of their partnership with The Wildlife Trusts.
As part of his conservation plan, one of the blackcurrant growers from Herefordshire has also restored a pond on his farm. He's seen frogs return to the pond, and has even witnessed a large number of tadpoles marching across plantations! To ensure the frogs stay safe, he's set up diversion routes for his tractors.
For more information about our work with The Wildlife Trusts, visit www.wildlifetrusts.org
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Our blackcurrant growers are passionately protecting the British countryside.