English Premier League football club Tottenham Hotspur has maintained that its new stadium’s innovative beer delivery system still ties in with its goal of eliminating single-use plastics.
On Sunday, Tottenham staged the first major test event at the stadium, with the beer delivery system one of the features that caught the imagination of the 6,000 season ticket holders who secured access to the specially-arranged ‘fan familiarisation’ event.
Tottenham has partnered with Bottoms Up Beer to install its delivery systems at the stadium’s bars. The automated, hands-free system claims to be a more profitable way of selling beer, with magnets placed at the bottom of special plastic cups filling the receptacles from the bottom up.
Bottoms Up claims the system can serve 69 pints in one minute, but the use of such plastic cups has raised questions over Spurs’ stated sustainability commitment at its new home. In April, Tottenham signalled its intention to phase out single-use plastics at the 62,062-seat venue.
From opening day, which has yet to be confirmed, the stadium will eliminate the use of plastic straws, stirrers, cutlery and all plastic disposable packing these items are accompanied by. The club’s new supplier contracts will also include a requirement to reduce single-use plastics.
Commenting on how the Bottoms Up system fits in with this policy, Tottenham’s venue director, Andy O’Sullivan, told The Stadium Business: “We have indeed stated our commitment to phasing out single use plastics and have already underlined initial measures for the new stadium and are working with our caterers to take this further.
“At present, there is no real SUP solution that exists that can be adopted in a football stadium. However, that doesn’t mean we aren’t investigating and working with all suppliers to further this.”
Tottenham has been boosted by positive feedback from fans after Sunday’s event and O’Sullivan said the club is taking on board the reaction it has received. He added: “The reaction on social media and through various media reports from the fans lucky enough to attend last week’s familiarisation event was overwhelmingly positive. That’s not to say we didn’t have teething issues that we can learn from.
“We’ve had an internal debrief on this, taken on board the feedback we have seen on social media and been sent by fans, both positive and negative, and have also emailed all attendees a questionnaire to fill in to share feedback. A great start, however there’s plenty that we could do, and will do, better second time around.”
Image: Tottenham Hotspur
Share this