Diageo : Cheers to 100 years of Tusker and a more sustainable future

100 years ago, the first Tusker beer was brewed by George and Charles Hurst in Kenya, the founding drink of what would become East African Breweries Ltd (EABL). The beer emerged at a time when branded alcohol was largely prohibited in African markets like Kenya; with EABL pioneering the expansion of Kenyan brewing and crucially local production. Today the business not only brews locally but sources locally too working with over 60,000 local farmers. Tusker is the first indigenous Kenyan company to grow into a multinational and is now across Uganda and Tanzania also.

Tusker brewery is looking to a sustainable future and is making changes to safeguard its next 100 years. Later in 2022 three biomass boilers currently trialling at Kisumu, Tusker and Kampala will become fully operational. These sites brew, amongst others Tusker, Senator and Portbell lagers. The biomass boilers are expected to save 42,000 tonnes annually, the carbon equivalent of taking 10,500 cars off the road each year.

Biomass boilers are a more sustainable way of producing large amounts of energy as they use renewable sources to produce the power. The EABL boilers will be fuelled with local agricultural waste including rice and coffee husk, woodchip and macadamia. By using agricultural waste as fuel, we can help reduce regional waste and simultaneously support even more farmers within our supply chain.