Made in Scotland – from gusts

Published on Saturday 16 January 2010 19:12

MADE from girders no more. Irn-Bru, the iconic fizzy drink imbibed by generations of Scots, will now be manufactured by soft Atlantic breezes.

Owners AG Barr are turning production of the orange-coloured drink green by harnessing the power of the prevailing westerly winds.

The company has just received planning permission to erect a 2.5 million turbine to provide most of the electricity from wind power at its Cumbernauld factory.

The massive two megawatt turbine – around 126 metres high – will dominate the 50-acre site, and it is estimated it will provide as much as 60 per cent of the factory's electricity when it is up and running.

Given the turbine's height, the company had to overcome the concerns of the town's airport and mobile phone mast operators before approval was given by councillors.

Roger White, the chief executive of AG Barr, said that although the company has been considering having a wind turbine on its site for several years, planning permission had only just been granted.

"We have gone through a lot of loops and hoops and trials and tribulations on the planning front but we finally got it," said White.

He is not sure how long it will take the company to get a return on its considerable investment in renewable electricity.

"It is a lot of money and the return on investment oscillates in terms of what you are paying for your power. But it is our intention to continue with the project and go ahead with it."

Environmental groups said the company was taking the right approach to using renewable sources to provide its power. Dr Richard Dixon, director of WWF Scotland, urged more major companies to follow its example.

Dixon said: "We all need to think about where our energy comes from and lots of companies are thinking about how efficiently they use energy and where their energy is produced.

"With oil prices going up, every company should be thinking how can it become a little more self-sufficient.

"Barr has always been an innovative company in terms of its public image – such as its very clever advertising which has paid off for them. I hope they make some play of this as well. When you are drinking Irn-Bru you can be satisfied that at least a large part of the energy used to make it comes from a renewable source."

The Barr family has been making fizzy drinks in Scotland since 1880, but it was in 1901 they launched their mixed-flavour drink called Iron-Brew. Its famous slogan "Made from Girders" came from comparisons to the girders used to construct the Forth Rail Bridge. Renamed Irn-Bru after the Second World War because the word "brew" was deemed by officials to be misleading, it was Scotland's best-selling carbonated drink until being overtaken by Coke and Pepsi.

Its popularity is still widespread – the equivalent of 12 cans are consumed every second – with sales now booming south of the Border after a series of clever advertisements, including a pastiche of The Snowman in which the little boy in the story is dropped while the snowman makes off with his drink.

Last September, despite the recession, a poor summer and fierce competition, AG Barr reported pre-tax profits of 13.5 million, up 19.5 per cent, as sales of Irn-Bru surged. White expects work to start on the wind turbine within the next year.

Producing its own energy from renewable sources will help AG Barr reduce its carbon footprint – the amount of carbon dioxide it produces as a result of manufacturing processes and its use of energy. The Department of Energy and Climate Change is bringing in new rules for companies which will cap their emission levels later this year.

Only a handful of major manufacturers in Scotland have so far installed turbines to use wind power. The first factory was the Michelin plant in Dundee in 2006. The two 130-metre windmills provide roughly 30 per cent of the electricity required to power the factory, which makes about seven million tyres every year.

White says AG Barr's green push is simply because it is the "right thing to do", arguing that AG Barr has been a sustainable business since it started in 1875. "The whole sustainability and environment thing is very important to us, but it is not important to us because it is trendy," he said. "We've been a sustainable-focused business for decades when it wasn't very bankable in terms of its importance.

"For us, doing the right thing is important. It is one of the benefits of being a family business for a long time. Often decisions were made to do things that were not what a corporate would have done in those days. They made long-term decisions about the business and our goal is to continue to do that."

AG Barr is one of the last UK bottlers to take back glass bottles for recycling and pay 10p for each one. The company currently re-uses 60 per cent of its bottles.