Sustainability and catering are terms that don’t really seem to go together.
At every event, energy and resources are spent for a few hours to create a special experience for guests. Goods, glassware, and equipment are transported—mostly by diesel vans—and in most cases everything is picked up again the very next day.
Unconsumed food is thrown away, and decorations that can’t be reused are discarded.
With our company moving bars, we’ve been part of this world for more than 20 years—and for a long time, sustainability simply wasn’t something you could realistically think about in the context of cocktail catering.
Times are changing—and so are we
But times have changed, and even in the catering industry there are ways to conserve energy and resources. One key shift came through digitalization and the internet. Ten years ago we were still traveling all over Germany with our mobile cocktail bar; today the market has become strongly regionalized thanks to Google. Services can be found locally with little effort. We don’t really miss the countless hours on the motorway—and our customers in Berlin and the surrounding area keep us more than busy.
Sustainable materials and consumables
In other areas, policymakers acted and effectively required more sustainability from the market.
The disappearance of single-use plastic products initially caused problems for us, because for many people a cocktail simply includes a straw. But the market has responded and now offers sustainable alternatives. After a long search—and after testing products that didn’t satisfy us—we now use straws made from plant fibers that match their predecessors in feel, stability, and taste neutrality.
With paper napkins it was easier to find an attractive product made from recycled paper. On top of that, we also focus on avoiding waste: we no longer automatically serve every drink with a straw and a napkin, but leave it up to the guest how they want to enjoy their cocktail.
Efficient inventory management and transport optimization
One of the decisive factors in cocktail catering is logistics.
Another important step toward greater sustainability was reducing unnecessary surplus stock that we used to transport. The challenge is that you can’t know 100% in advance how much guests will drink—and you want to avoid running out of something they want.
Today we work with a calculation tool we developed ourselves. It builds in sensible reserves while avoiding unnecessary overhang. This allowed us to reduce the volume of goods we transport by around one third. Where we used to shop separately for each event, we can now bundle purchasing thanks to our software and our storage setup—and only need to visit our supplier once a week.
Energy efficiency in our storage and office
Since early 2023, when we found new premises for storage and office, we’ve been purchasing electricity from renewable sources. Only a small, separated office area is heated, and all fluorescent tubes have been replaced with energy-saving LED tubes. When buying a dishwasher, we chose a model that is particularly efficient in its use of water and electricity.
Electric mobility: our Mercedes eSprinter as a milestone
One major problem remained: transport. Since we supplied our first events 25 years ago, the diesel van was considered the ultimate solution for businesses like ours.
Mobility is our business, and every event is like two moves—one in, one out. The switch to electric mobility has been rather slow in Germany, and in the van segment there were still no manufacturer options two years ago that were both affordable and sensible in terms of the range we need.
And yet, this is precisely where we see the most important lever for sustainable cocktail catering. Inner-city deliveries—with their manageable distances and constant stop-and-go traffic—should be carried out without CO₂ emissions. In the meantime, the market has responded here as well.
After extensive research into electric mobility and a thorough analysis of our own needs in terms of range and transport capacity, we have now purchased a Mercedes eSprinter. We charge at our storage facility using electricity from renewable sources, and for our primary service area—Berlin and the surrounding region—200–250 kilometers of range is more than sufficient. We aren’t even dependent on the increasingly dense network of public charging stations.
Our goal: climate neutrality by 2030
Sustainability is an ongoing process, and our long-term goal is to operate as climate-neutral as possible by 2030. This includes fully transitioning our fleet to electric mobility as well as continuously optimizing our processes to conserve resources.
With our mobile cocktail bar, we show that sustainability and first-class event hospitality can go hand in hand. We’re convinced that environmentally conscious action in our industry is not only possible, but necessary—for a future in which we can continue to serve unforgettable cocktails without burdening the environment.
Your moving bars Team