Revolution Bars Group, the leading operator of bars including Revolution and Revolución de Cuba, will remove all passionfruit garnishes from their Pornstar Martini and Rumtini serves from this December.
The move is an industry first and will save over half a million passionfruit per year. The bold move is part of Revolution Bars Group’s ongoing commitment to sustainability and a fundamental promise is to be a Net Zero business before 2030.
The group sells 1.2million Pornstar Martini and Rumtini cocktails annually across 67 venues, using an average of 36 tons of passionfruit. Imported from South America, the passionfruit garnish, which tends to be discarded by the majority of customers, will now be replaced by rice paper promoting a sustainable message. Previously, the discarded passionfruit were composted, but the new initiative will reduce Revolution Bars Group carbon footprint by over 100 tons of CO2.
Rob Pitcher, CEO of Revolution Bars Group, commented, “Since 2019 we have been working hard to implement ways to ensure that Revolution Bars Group is a sustainable and environmentally conscious business. We have set ourselves some tough targets, with our guiding goal to be Net Zero business before 2030.
“The Pornstar Martini and Rumtini are massively popular serves for us so we were using a lot of passionfruit, but in the vast majority of cases the passionfruit garnish was quickly discarded by customers as it was simply getting in their way of enjoying their drink. The decision to replace the passionfruit garnish with rice paper is just one of the many ways we will achieve our sustainability goals.”
Any financial savings will be invested in sustainability projects across the business as part of the Net Zero strategy. As part of this the company will be able offset the carbon related to all cocktails, representing about 8% of our total footprint, and creating a totally carbon neutral cocktail menu.
Alongside the move to remove passionfruit garnishes, Revolution Bars Group has committed to science-based targets in order to become a net zero business by 2030 – the first bar group in the UK to do so. The business has put sustainability at the heart of any planned refurbishment, with recycling zones behind the bar, the roll out of LED lighting, a reduced number of vehicle drops, a move towards energy efficient equipment across all areas of the business, and all direct electricity now supplied from a zero-carbon supplier.
Earlier this year Revolution Bars Group was recognised with a Gold Level Green Apple Award for Environmental Best Practice and is also proud to have been one of the founding members of the Zero Carbon Forum. There is also a ‘Zero Hero’ designated member of the team at every site whose responsibility it is to focus on reducing out-of-hours energy consumption – something that has helped reduce energy consumption by 19% since 2017.
