Dalston’s Soda Co (sparkling drinks with bold flavours)

Dalston’s Soda Co is a brand of fizzy pop that you can find nationwide. It’s made with real natural ingredients and bold flavours, with real fruit juice in every can. This gives them an authentic and fresh taste.

The sodas are sold in aluminium cans, a material that is easily recycled and sold at low cost to industry, as it does not really lose quality. This also saves up to 95% water on making new aluminium (which then also does not have to be mined).

You can even set up an aluminium can and foil recycling scheme, and raise money for community projects, by selling the cans back to industry.

Before recycling, pop ring-pulls back over holes (and pinch or flatten top) to stop wildlife getting trapped. It’s also good to give cans a quick rinse to remove scents of sugary liquids (nutmeg in cola and spiced apple is toxic also to birds, wildlife and pets).

The brand was founded by a chef who did not like sugary soft drinks, so started experimenting in a kitchen in an East London nightclub. Each can is just 50 calories (almost 3 times less than can of full-fat cola).

At first, all ingredients were outsourced from local markets. Now there is not enough local fruit, but everything is still sustainably-sourced (the elderflowers for example are hand-picked from a farm in Ross-on-Wye). Pineapples are sourced from sustainable farms in Costa Rica.

The drinks are sweetened with fruit juice (apple or grape). This is far better than most canned drinks on sale these days which contain artificial sweetener (to increase profits, due to sugar tax concerns).

No added sugar or sweeteners, nothing artificial, nothing you can’t pronounce. Unless you can’t pronounce Rhubarb, but that’s really on your parents.

The drinks are pasteurised, to enhance shelf life.

The cans are sent to shops and your home in cardboard packs. Plastic pallets (which can be recycled) are used made from 30% recycled material. Staff also regularly volunteer in local canal clean-ups, getting on paddleboards to remove plastic in London waterways.

Find Dalston’s sodas in over 5000 outlets nationwide including cafes, restaurants, pubs and grocery stores. If not sold in shops, you can subscribe online for 15% savings (you can also buy boxes of 12, 24 or 48 cans in mixed flavours):