Food Processing - June 2008 - (Page 51)

Environmental sustainability and its little brother, energy efficiency, drive many current plant renovations. – By Bob Sperber, Contributing Editor lant renovations and upgrades are driven by many needs, from safety and sanitation to capacity upgrades and new product lines. But nothing’s trendier right now than sustainability. Dig deeper, and energy conservation and savings provide the real driver. Experts in the field say food companies aren’t going green just because it’s good for the Earth. There’s also a clear marketing advantage behind it, as well as cost savings when the focus is on reducing energy or waste. One of the sources for this story said many of the companies he’s in contact with are looking at sustainability initiatives “because Wal-Mart is requiring it.” And why is Wal-Mart requiring it? “That goes back to the marketing play,” he says. “They want people to think they care.” There may well come a time when a company no longer gets attention for being green. But it’s hard to envision a time when energy efficiency will cease to matter. The current costs of fuel, food and materials aren’t just threatening profit margins but driving innovation. “The thing that’s different from projects in the past is the focus on sustainability, particularly because it incorporates energy savings,” says Vince DiPofi, senior vice president–food and beverage for the architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) firm SSOE Inc. (www.ssoe.com), Toledo, Ohio. “Food plants are always looking at efficiency increases of all kinds.” Of all the green moves, energy savings tends to “pay off a lot faster than water and other conservation projects,” says foodprocessing.com P Mark Swanson, business development manager for food and consumer products for AEC firm Burns & McDonnell Engineering Co. (www.burnsmcd.com), Kansas City, Mo. Starting points Companies should approach an energy savings/conservation project as they do any other project – with an action plan. Determine a baseline, evaluate current practices/demand, develop an improvement/savings strategy. “See how you are going to continually improve and sustain conservation and savings,” says Larry Ware, who used this template during his decades in the meat industry. Now as business development manager with Praj Schneider Engineering Co. (www.prajschneider.com), Omaha, Neb., he says high-horsepower motors are some of the biggest energy hogs in meat processing plants. So are refrigeration systems. If long-term thinking guides your corporate culture, two well-known programs, LEED and Energy Star, offer programs for eco-friendly benchmarking. The U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) certification helps new and existing plants achieve higher overall performance in an environmentally conscious manner, whether or not a capital-intensive renovation is planned. More limited to an energy-only focus, the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Energy Star program offers certifications and can be used for LEED efforts. DoE offers additional resources through its Industrial Technologies/ Save Energy Now initiative. June 2008 food processing • 51 http://www.burnsmcd.com http://www.prajschneider.com http://www.ssoe.com http://foodprocessing.com

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Food Processing - June 2008 Editor's Plate NewsBites Show Report The Trends Rollout Food Biz Kids Consumer Taste Test A Bevy of New CEOs Ingredients Packaging Plant Operations MRO Q&A New Supplier Products Toops Scoops Contents

Food Processing - June 2008

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