Drinks Cubed’s 30,000 Thanks initiative helps frontline NHS workers

Drinks Cubed’s 30,000 Thanks initiative helps frontline NHS workers

Written by Sukhi Sindhu: At Drinks Cubed (DRINKS³) one of our core values is to be part of a strong community and to bringing change, support and sustainability.  In unprecedented times such as these, we realised early on that we needed to help our community.  Knowing the importance of hydration, we switched our efforts and energy away from our day-to-day commercial activities to finding ways in which we could help those fighting the virus.

So, on 22 March 2020 we launched the 20,000 Thanks initiative. We set out to give away 20,000 WATER3 carton bottles (all of our available stock at the time) to NHS hospitals across the UK.  As hydration is a vital part of keeping healthy, it was quite apparent this was a must. With the help of some industry contacts, we made the arrangements and within a few days, we had our first delivery on it’s way to Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital in London.

It has been very well received, as so many NHS staff are wearing PPE under which they become very warm. So this is our way of keeping the heroes on the front line hydrated, as well as reducing the risk of cross contamination. Although this initiative was set up to show our gratitude to the NHS staff, the messages of thanks we have received has been overwhelming. We quickly learnt that the hospitals needed more drinks, so we have changed the 20,000 to 30,000 Thanks and will be sending out another 10,000 carton bottles over the next few weeks.

Milton Keynes University Hospital

St Helier Hospital

The support we have received from our brand partners SIG Combibloc has been brilliant. They have helped us from the outset of both our mission and this initiative. We have also had a huge amount of help from the team at Brakes Foodservice, who have helped facilitate getting our drinks to where they are needed.

One of the biggest lessons we have learnt from the Covid-19 pandemic is that in times of crisis, a company’s purpose and core values are exposed for all to see. How a company reacts is a reflection on it’s preparation and vision.

About Drinks Cubed

Drinks Cubed (DRINKS³) is a six month old start up (launched at lunch! 2019), which is on a mission to become the benchmark for sustainability in the beverage industry.

At DRINKS³ our goal is to become the lowest CO₂ footprint soft drinks brand in the UK by 2022. We aim to achieve this by working on the following 3 key areas which we have identified as the biggest issues relating to climate change in the beverage industry.

1. Packaging – WATER³ carton-bottles are made from 100% responsibly sourced materials of which over 90% are plant based. These have been proven to generate up to 41% less CO₂ than conventional plastic bottles. These are also recyclable as a single unit.
2. Distribution – We are investing in a fleet of electric trucks which are estimated to arrive by the end of 2020. Each truck will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by approx. 1,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year (based on being charged with wind power energy).
3. Production – We are also in the process of building our own production facility in the UK which will be exclusively powered by renewable energy. This source of renewable energy will also be used to power our fleet of electric vehicles.

For more information, please visit: www.drinkscubed.com