The Race to Save the Planet

The winners of ProFood World’s annual Sustainability Excellence in Manufacturing Awards are focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, electricity, and water, as well as food waste and materials management.

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Sustainability is the new watchword for a huge and growing band of consumers, according to a June 2022 report from PMMI titled “Achieving Packaging Sustainability.” The ongoing green movement presents an opportunity for businesses facing increasing competitive and economic pressures to gain value in competitive advantage as they respond to environmental concerns and the pressures of resource scarcity, population growth, and higher and more varied consumer expectations.

Perhaps unfairly, the packaging industry is seen as one of the worst environmental offenders, the PMMI report states. At a recent Top to Top event held in Florida, PMMI hosted roundtables with participants from across the packaging value chain. Participants indicated that it’s not just CPGs that should be implementing sustainability strategies. OEMs also have a crucial part to play in energy savings. In fact, a current hot topic in Europe is a carbon footprint rating for each new machine.


Read article   Download the 2022 report, "Achieving Packaging Sustainability," from PMMI.

Overall, the message from participants at the Top to Top meeting is that it’s all about the collaboration between CPGs, material suppliers, and OEMs as they plan ahead for the next generation of packaging materials.

However, while consumers continue to seek sustainable products, they may not be willing to pay the price, according to a recent report from market research firm AMC Global and OpinionRoute, a company that provides insights into process management. These survey results say that many consumers want sustainably produced and sourced products, but price remains the top consideration when making purchasing decisions. According to AMC Global, consumers believe these products are more expensive than their mainstream counterparts, and recent inflation and price increases are making affordability a key concern. In addition, a high percentage of respondents say it is hard to tell which brands are sustainable and which are not.

While 43% of people believe it is worth it to pay more for sustainable products, 66% say they can’t afford to do so due to recent price increases across the board. 


Read article   Learn more about AMC's "Importance of Sustainability" report.

While consumers often look to retailers and product packaging to guide them on sustainability, the winners of ProFood World’s annual Sustainability Excellence in Manufacturing Awards are focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, electricity, and water, as well as food waste and materials management. Following are the six 2021 Program and Project Category winners.

FIRST PLACE | Program Category

No-cost Project Yields $1 Million Payback for Conagra Brands

Conagra Brands’ Oakdale, Calif., facility created a cross-functional team that made excellent progress in reducing food waste.Conagra Brands’ Oakdale, Calif., facility created a cross-functional team that made excellent progress in reducing food waste.Conagra Brands

The Oakdale, Calif., Conagra Brands facility makes Hunt’s and Ro-Tel brands, and other food products. Over the past year, the facility’s cross-functional team made excellent progress in reducing food waste. The team implemented a comprehensive plan and problem-solving program throughout 2021 to eliminate ingredient loss points for both jalapeños and tomatoes. The program addressed three causes of jalapeño waste (spoiled ingredients, batch planning, and fill controls) and two processes for tomato waste (peelers and fillers). As a result, the plant utilized 650,000 lb of jalapeño and 13.8 million lb of tomato raw ingredients compared to 2020, which reduced the site’s solid waste footprint by about 10%.

“By manufacturing food ingredients more efficiently, we are using utilities more efficiently,” says Kate Pitschka, director of supply chain sustainability, pointing to Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. “We are also moving a significant portion of the site’s food waste up in the recovery hierarchy from animal feed and compost.”

The plant is located in a high water-risk region, and eliminating some of the organic load being sent to wastewater operations is reducing some stress on the region’s water cycle. By eliminating food waste, the facility is reducing the amount of Scope 3 GHG emissions (EPA WARM and Biogenic) that the food waste would create downstream.

Teams were established during March to May 2021, project scopes were defined within one to two months, and specific projects were implemented between July and October 2021, resulting in a 4% jalapeño yield improvement and a 1.8% tomato yield improvement. 

“Savings were strictly through better use of available equipment resources and process improvements, with limited costs,” explains Pitschka.

The Oakdale cross-functional team delivered a $471,000 jalapeño yield loss reduction (spoiled ingredients, under net weight rejections, and overfill) and a $730,000 tomato yield loss reduction. These calculations do not include the energy cost savings associated with treating the food waste going to wastewater, nor the hauling costs of the solid waste.

The team discovered that of the 650,000 lb of jalapeño waste, 236,300 lb were from spoiled jalapeño ingredients, resulting in a 4% year-over-year yield improvement and an elimination of all spoiled ingredients in 2021. 

Food waste is greatly reduced at Conagra Brands’ Oakdale facility through better use of equipment and process improvements.Food waste is greatly reduced at Conagra Brands’ Oakdale facility through better use of equipment and process improvements.Conagra Brands

In 115 days, 6,900 tons of recovered tomato losses were achieved, representing a 1.8% yield loss improvement year over year. This tomato waste was going through a wastewater treatment system where solids are separated and sent to animal feed. “It is difficult to fully quantify the full comparison because of increasing production and some of this existing waste weight stayed in the water cycle, but the amount of solid waste produced by the site decreased significantly during these specific months,” states Shelley Huskey, environmental manager. In the end, about 10% of the site’s total solid waste was eliminated from the prior year.

Programs like this have been implemented at other Conagra facilities, but the Oakdale team had to use problem-solving concepts and apply them to their lines, equipment, and circumstances. “More specifically, the foundational knowledge comes from the Conagra Performance System principles,” says Huskey.

Any manufacturing facility could implement the concepts of this type of problem solving, but like the Oakdale team, they will need to adjust it to meet their site-specific losses. “Often in a manufacturing setting, it is difficult to get past the reactionary mindset because of all the urgent issues that tend to arise, but it is crucial to shift to a proactive mindset in order to address problems like these,” Huskey adds.

SECOND PLACE | Program Category

Bob’s Red Mill Focuses on Wasted Food Rescue and Materials Management

Bob’s Red Mill employees intercepted product from the waste stream and were trained to identify donatable items.Bob’s Red Mill employees intercepted product from the waste stream and were trained to identify donatable items.Bob's Red Mill

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