The Answer Is In The Bottle
I’ve always wanted to advise a friend of mine (who can finish a carton of beer in one night) to drink bottled beer instead of canned beer. With the option to order online nowadays, one can easily order heavier bottled beer and have them delivered.
Why is bottled beer cheaper? I shall try to answer that without proper training - something for which people who have taught me never liked me. Bottles, if unbroken, need only be washed before reuse. Aluminium cans, on the other hand, have to be melted and cast before they can be reused. I remember the good old days when bottles could be returned to the provision shops for a rebate. The karang guni men of yesteryears also collected bottles apart from newspapers. Why don’t the beer companies send people out to collect empty, undamaged bottles with which they can reuse? Unfortunately, that is one question which I can’t answer without proper training.
Another question I can’t answer without proper training is this: why can’t mobile breweries hit the streets and let the folks with empty bottles bring them down for refills. Not only will that solve the problem of collecting bottles and refilling at the plant, the consumers can actually go to the suppliers directly for refills. A lot less trash. A lot less mess. And if the beer could be dispensed to the nearest ml for immediate consumption, then any receptacle will do. They are already doing it in China. Or maybe I should say that they are still doing it in China. Remember the good old days when the soy sauce man would come down on his bicycle and top up our empty soy sauce bottles?
These mobile breweries can do late night, weekend or public holiday runs when the ERPs are turned off and most people are at home. Guzzlers can register for SMS alerts when the beer truck is approaching their home. They can go online to check the truck’s schedule. Everybody would be happy except for the retailers.
We sure have a lot to learn from the past. You don’t need someone who’s paid a million bucks a year to come up with these solutions. But what about the retailers? Well, their beer sales will certainly be affected, but they can still cater to consumers who are not at home most of the time. In time to come, these shops may even house a few barrels of beer and buying beer could soon be a matter of topping up at the nearest minimart. That’s your solution coming from someone without the proper training.
