Going Green
by Carol Jobman, Prairie Berry Winery
I am a new member of the Prairie Berry staff having been employed since last summer. Learning the wine business has been fascinating and rewarding and I have welcomed the opportunity to write submissions for the Wine Nose Blog. I recently left a career in education and still find myself thinking about each new month with the anticipation of what the days to come have to offer in holidays, events, and seasonal changes. With that in mind, I look at April as a month to promote recycling and sustainability noting that Earth Day and Arbor Day are a part of this month. Wineries as a whole are ag-based businesses, of course, due to the nature of our raw product. And as such, we have to be keenly aware of best practices for sustainability. We have a strong recycling program in place here and the winery staff continues to look toward improvements to be made to our practice. The efforts begin with each employee; grow to include the staff as a whole, and leads to an enhanced experience for each guest. The well-known slogan, “Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle” is practiced throughout the winery. Prairie Berry recently adopted a Recycling and Sustainability Guide that will lead to improved practices. Some highlights of the guide include the following:
Reduce
• All to-go items from our kitchen will be packaged in bio-degradable containers
• We will not offer bottled water once our current supply is gone. We will offer our guests great South Dakota drinking water right from the tap
• We will strive to go paperless in many aspects of our business using instead electronic communication and whiteboards
Reuse
• Recycled and/or Eco paper is used for our letterhead, envelopes, and brochures
• We use rechargeable batteries
• Wine case boxes are reused to box customer wine orders
Recycle
• In the future, production waste and food waste from the kitchen will be composted.
• Cardboard, glass, plastic, and aluminum cans are recycled
• Prairie Berry will soon be offering a reusable eco-bag for guests to carry home their wine purchases
Soon the weather will warm and the growing season will once again be embraced by many. The five generations of wine makers in the Vojta family have been resourceful stewards of the land, creating wonderful wines from the bounty of produce available in the Midwest. That concept is likewise part of the green movement. The very idea of sustainability can be strengthened by the resourcefulness of each of us. So enjoy the season to come and consider what you can do to create your own “green lifestyle.”