When I co-founded Avallen Spirits with Stephanie Balmforth-Jordan all the way back in 2019 BC (before covid), we had a simple, singular ambition: to set new standards for sustainability in the spirits industry and put environmental impact front and centre of the conversation alongside delicious flavour.

I know it sounds clichéd, but we genuinely wanted to build something that gave back more than it took, was climate positive, and supported the farmers, soil, and bees that are critical architects of the final product.

The sustainability side of it was my bag, Stephanie is the brilliant business woman with proud French heritage, endless connections, and boundless determination who made Avallen commercially successful.

Growing up on the beaches of Cornwall, the most beautiful part of the UK with palm trees in the garden, miles of golden sand, and one of the only regions in the world that is both temperate and subtropical, it's hard not to fall in love with nature.

Not only do I love the challenge of building businesses that put planet and people alongside profit, I believe it should be the only way to do business. The time worn mantra of 'leave it better than you found it' rings loudly in my head.

While my dreams were of building sustainable businesses, I didn’t spend my time dreaming about being chained to the laptop, buried in messy spreadsheets, searching through emails, writing reports that hardly anyone read, bothering people for utilities data, and losing sleep over whether a single miscalculation would lead to a "greenwashing" headline and losing the trust of people we'd worked so hard to build.

At times sustainability felt like homework rather than what got me out of bed in the morning. It was uninspiring, administrative, expensive, and frankly, a bit of a bore.

The Sustainability Paralysis

After launching Avallen and getting a lot of recognition for our sustainability work, we launched a consultancy Avallen Solutions 2024. The goal was to help other drinks brands with their sustainability journey, sharing the knowledge and experience we had learned along the way, for the greater good of both the industry and our planet.

Whether I was talking to a globally recognised island rum brand or a genre defining non-alc aperitif, the story was often the same: people wanted to do the right thing, but they were stuck in what I like to call "Sustainability Paralysis."

The tools are available and they do what they say on the tin, but none of them are purpose built for the industry. You either pay a small fortune, for a start-up drinks brand at least, for an expert to write a report that sits in a drawer, or you use an expensive off the shelf carbon calculator (we did for Avallen) that only reports your GHG emissions but doesn't help you measure your water impact, B Corp ambitions, or risk of being fined for greenwashing.

The industry we love is entirely reliant on a healthy planet, and as I like to say, flavour starts in the soil. Our liquid is, quite literally, on loan from nature, and the planet deserves better than a pivot table in Excel.

An SOS For Drinks

I built alkatera to be the platform I wish I’d had on day one at Avallen, and much more.

I built Alkatera to be the Sustainability Operating System for the drinks industry and to make the complex simple. It's more than just a carbon calculator, it's the one platform to rule them all (die hard LOTR fan here) when it comes to sustainability in drinks, covering everything from emissions and circularity to supply chain impact and risk assessment for greenwashing.

Alka-: drawn from Alchemy and the historic roots of Alcohol production. It represents the "liquid craft" of our industry.

-Tera: This is a direct reference to Terra (Earth/Soil). As we say in our manifesto, "The soil does not negotiate." It represents the agricultural foundation of every drink and our commitment to protecting the ecosystems that yield our ingredients.

We’ve taken the jargon-heavy science of sustainability and automated the calculations, wrapping it in a design that (hopefully) is a joy to use.

We are moving away from a traditional consultancy model making do with tools that don't quite fit because advice isn't enough anymore. In a world of tightening regulations, increasing reporting demands, and the EU Green Claims Directive, drinks brands don’t just need an idea and a roadmap, they need an engine.

Our Philosophy: Sustainability, Distilled

We have a few core beliefs that drive everything we do at alkatera:

Design is a Function: If a tool is beautiful and intuitive, people will use it. If it’s clunky, it’ll be frustrating and used less. Having studied design at university, I truly believe that it can be the bridge between data and action.
The "Glass Box" Standard: No more hidden math, misleading numbers, or obscure claims. Every calculation in Alkatera is transparent and traceable, placed inside a digital glassbox that can't be broken, altered, or edited. Trust is earned through data, not promises.
Sustainability is a Growth Lever: This isn’t about "checking a box" for compliance or reporting because you have to. It’s about building brands that are built for the long game, resilient, audit-ready, and commercially attractive to distributors, wholesalers, customers, citizens, and investors.

What’s Next?

We are currently in our final build phase, working with a founding cohort of brands to ensure every feature solves a real-world problem and the platform is ready for launch with rigorously tested calculations, a suite of useful tools, and a robust plan for development.

We launch in early February 2026.

Alkatera is our antidote to sustainability apathy. We’re here to demystify the science, lighten the administrative load, and help you focus on what you do best: making incredible drinks.

The soil does not negotiate, but with the right tools, we can ensure we’re in harmony with it for generations to come.

Welcome to the journey.