110: Creating Safer Community for Breweries and Vulnerable Neighbours with Ren Navarro of B.Diversity

Alcohol has been navigating a new social landscape in America and Canada since COVID hit. While there were signs that alcohol consumption was rising with lockdowns, there’s also been more spaces for conversation around the use of alcohol as a drug, or trickier relationships with drinking and binge drinking, amidst a backdrop of the drug use crisis that is sweeping across families of all types with changes in drug supply and challenges with cost of living. It is a lot to navigate, so I brought back my favourite beer and diversity expert to talk through it, Ren Navarro.

Ren runs B.Diversity Group, and is certified by some of the world’s largest alcohol programs, including Prud’homme, WSET, Cicerone, and AFicioNAdo (an alcohol free certification). She has appeared on national television talking about the historical aspects and new trends in alcohol, and the benefits of stronger communities. In 2018, Ren created Beer. Diversity., a company and advocacy group whose focus was for folks to be able to have open conversations, one beer at a time. With the evolution of this company into non-alcoholic spheres, she introduced B.Diversity in early 2023. This amalgamation aims to create safer spaces in which to have more open and honest conversations to support and create meaningful change in a multitude of industries.

Today she’s on the show to speak to what has shifted with the beer industry since she was last on in early 2020 (pre-COVID, which is wild!), and her transition into championing diversity and inclusion through working with breweries to train and aid those affected by the opioid and drug crisis in Canada. We also discuss the variety of non-alcoholic beverages on the market, along with how to learn about and access them, and the lessons she’s learned as she’s evolved her company while continuing to bring diversity to the forefront of learning and working relationships.

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