The Beer Store has been in business since 1927. They’re owned by 30 Ontario-based brewers!
In their 420 retails stores, they offer over 1,000 beer brands from 240 brewers around the world. Not only that, but they serve approximately 18,000 licensed customers, 671 government-owned LCBO retail locations, 327 retail partners and LCO convenience stores, and 446 grocery stores selling beer, wine and cider—phew!
At Random Acts of Green, we’re excited to say that environmental leadership is a core value at The Beer Store.
Here are just some of the ways The Beer Store has incorporated sustainability into their operations:
⚈ They take back all the packaging that they sell to consumers (as well as from the 17,807 bars and restaurants they sell their products to). In fact, they are a global leader in this practice. All collected materials are either reused or recycled.
Because of this, The Beer Store reuses and recycles over 1.8 billion containers each year (and they even take bottle caps, 6-pack rings, wine bladders and Tetra Paks)!
⚈ The Beer Store has an impressive recovery rate of 97% on the industry standard bottle.
Why does this matter? Recycling industry-standard bottles and inert glass containers helps reduce pressure on landfill space and significantly reduces pollution and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
⚈ The Beer Store was Canada’s first business recipient of the Environmental Choice Leadership Award.
“Ours is undoubtedly the most successful waste diversion program in Ontario, if not all of North America.”
In 2007, The Beer Store entered into a landmark five-year contract with the Ontario government to take back and refund deposits on all wine, spirit and cooler containers sold in Ontario through the Ontario Deposit Return Program. This partnership continues today.
The program covers all wine, spirit and cooler containers over 100 ml sold through LCBO stores and Ontario winery retail stores, as well as beer containers over 100 ml sold outside The Beer Store system (this includes tetra, bag in box and case).
Consumers pay a refundable deposit at the time of purchase. This deposit is 100% refunded when the empty container is returned to The Beer Store.
The recycling activities of their two deposit programs resulted in over 207,000 tonnes of avoided green house gas emissions. That’s about the same as removing nearly 45,000 cars from the road each year!
In 2020, The Beer Store released their Stewardship Report, which showcases a heady list of accolades:
Highlights include:
- Over 1.76 billion beverage alcohol containers have been collected from Ontario consumers (over 1.35 billion beer containers and over 415 million ODRP containers).
- They accepted more containers for reuse or recycling than was sold in their system in 2020.
- 95% of all refillable beer bottles sold in Ontario were returned — these bottles are reused an average of 15 times before being recycled into new glass bottles.
- They fundraise for Health Centres and Food Banks.
- They celebrate the success of their community run bottle drives.
We’re thrilled to have this champion of sustainability onboard as Random Acts of Green business members and we look forward to working with them in collective climate action.
Learn more about The Beer Store and their collection and recycling practices at their website below.
Corporate Office:
12258 Coleraine Drive
Bolton, Ontario, L7E 3A9
