Case Study: Highland Fine Cheeses Ltd.

Highland Fine Cheeses Ltd. was referred to Sustainable Food & Drink by Scottish Manuf

acturing Advisory Service to help benchmark its environmental performance and identify opportunities for cutting costs through environmental improvements.

Rory Stone, Managing Director, commented that "The Sustainable Food & Drink team have been helpful in guiding Highland Fine Cheeses through the multitude of opportunities available to bring about change in the way we consider the environment. They have showed us how simple solutions help reduce our impact whilst increasing our profitability."

Sustainable Food & Drink used carbon footprinting to benchmark Highland Fine Cheeses environmental performance, identify opportunities for cutting costs and reduce greenhouse gases emissions. As a result of this review, Sustainable Food & Drink recommended a design audit from the Energy Saving Trust for some planned modifications and suggested that Highland Fine Cheeses recycle its cardboard to significantly reduce its waste management costs.

Sustainable Food & Drink also evaluated the potential for generating heat and electricity from the anaerobic digestion of whey. This feasibility study found that whilst Highland Fine Cheeses produces sufficient quantities of whey to meet a proportion of its energy and heat requirements, the payback period for an investment of this nature did not make it an attractive proposition.

Case Study: Castle MacLellan

Castle MacLellan, manufacturers of high quality pâtés, approached Sustainable Food & Drink at a Scottish Enterprise Food Clinic in Dumfries for help understanding their environmental impacts. Tracey Scott, Technical Manager at Castle MacLellan noted that "as we supply the retail sector, we are expected to demonstrate continuous improvement in our environmental performance.

Sustainable Food & Drink suggested using carbon footprinting for this because it is a useful mechanism for: quantifying environmental impacts; prioritising initiatives and evaluating their impacts. Castle MacLellan's carbon footprint revealed that 90% of their emissions were associated with energy use and waste. Sustainable Food & Drink therefore arranged for Castle MacLellan to receive free energy and resource audits from the Carbon Trust and Zero Waste Scotland, respectively. The carbon footprint, and underpinning data collection exercise, also provided a mechanism for Scottish Enterprise to conduct a gap analysis between Castle MacLellan's environmental performance and key client requirements.

Tracey Scott said "we're using our carbon footprint as a mechanism for understanding our environmental impacts and as a baseline for measuring improvements in our environmental performance. Sustainable Food & Drink explained what we needed to include and why; showed us what data to use and where we could find it; analysed it; and highlighted opportunities for reducing our environmental impact in a concise, easy to read report and that was presented to our senior management team. To help us achieve practical reductions in our carbon footprint, Sustainable Food & Drink also coordinated additional support from the Carbon Trust and Zero Waste Scotland, saving us precious time and effort."

Case Study: TIO Ltd.

TIO Ltd supply organic carrots for Tesco and were introduced to Sustainable Food & Drink by an Innovation Technologist at Food Processing Faraday. TIO also wanted to benchmark its environmental performance and demonstrate its alignment with Tesco’s environmental policies.

Given Tesco’s commitment to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, carbon footprinting was an ideal tool to help TIO fulfil its environmental aspirations.

Through carbon footprinting, sustainable Food & Drink identified the main sources of greenhouse gases from TIO's operations and suggested a range of initiatives with the greatest scope for cutting emissions and costs. These recommendations supported TIO’s decision to focus on energy and waste, but also highlighted refrigeration as a priority area, as refrigerant losses made a significant contribution to their carbon footprint.

The carbon footprint helped TIO demonstrate, in a quantified manner, the range and impact of its environmental initiatives.

Sophie Hogg, TIO's Technical Manager said that "Sustainable Food & Drink met our Green Team and explained how a carbon footprint could help us meet our objective of understanding our environmental impact, setting targets and demonstrating the effectiveness of our environmental initiatives. Sustainable Food & Drink then guided us through a simple data collection process, analysed it and produced a concise report outlining our carbon footprint and opportunities for reducing it."

Accessing Support

Sustainable Food & Drink has up to 8 days of funded support to help Scottish food and drink companies improve their competitiveness through reductions in their carbon footprints. The support can help food and drink manufacturers identify opportunities for cutting costs and align themselves with clients' environmental requirements.

To discuss how Sustainable Food & Drink programme can help your food and drink business, please contact us.