Leaked Christmas speech of King Philip goes viral

Brussels, 21 December 2022 – Against all odds, the monarch focuses in his annual Christmas speech on one positive development of the past year: one million unnecessary single-use packaging could be avoided. At least that's what the sustainable start-up Dripl wants us to believe with a sometimes eerily realistic deepfake video of King Philippe, which was viewed almost 100,000 times on social media in no time.  

Dripl is a driven Brussels-based start-up with a mission: to make plastic-free drinking easy in companies with its packaging-free drinks vending machine. Since the company's inception in 2019, it has installed more than 140 of its vending machines at companies all over Belgium and the Netherlands. All in all, 1 million packaging-free drinks have already been served from Dripl's taps. This means that more than 13,000 PMD bags, 200,000 litres of unnecessary water transport and 29 tonnes of sugar were avoided.  

King Philippe in the breach

Dripl hopes that King Philippe's virtual push will help inspire even more people to use less disposable packaging. "We are certainly proud of this milestone and are pleased that His Majesty appreciates our achievement," winks Colin Deblonde, CEO and Co-founder of Dripl. "But our mission is just beginning. By the end of 2023, we also want to be active in Germany and the goal is to get rid of 3 million single-use packaging."

Crazy or genius?

"As a start-up, you sometimes have to kick the shins, or get creative to be heard," says Deblonde. "Unfortunately, we don't have the budgets that the Coca Colas or Pepsicos of this world can spend on advertising campaigns. That can sometimes be an advantage, because it forces you to do things in a non-traditional way."

Dripl believes that soon we will all be walking around with a reusable drinking bottle that we can fill with tasty drinks everywhere. Today, the focus is on the business world, but in the long term, the sky is the limit. "Isn't it strange that you can fill your Dopper with water everywhere, but that as soon as you want something fresh, you should immediately reach for disposable solutions?"    

Future purveyor to the Royal Household

"I also think of all those forward-thinking business leaders who chose to replace their drink dispensers with a Dripl, as we did at Court," the mock speech echoes. "We would love to become Court suppliers," Deblonde said. "We have meanwhile submitted our application to the Lord Intendant of the King's Civil List and sincerely hope that the King, too, will do his bit for a packaging-free world."