Greenvale AP picks up another award for their cascade potato washing system

Greenvale AP, the UK’s leading supplier of fresh potatoes, has once again proved it is blazing a trail in reducing water consumption in the fresh produce world, scooping a UK Water Efficiency Award 2012 in the Business and Industry category.

The award was presented by Chairman of the Environment Agency, the Rt Hon Lord Smith of Finsbury at the House of Lords.

Organised by The Environment Agency and Waterwise, the awards publicly recognise the efforts made by organisations that are taking responsibility to use water wisely to benefit society and economy, and protect our natural environment. They celebrate the achievements of organisations that ‘shout’ about water efficiency, ‘solve’ water demand management challenges and simply ‘save’ water.

Earlier this year Greenvale invested £1.7 million in a bid to reduce water wastage by 100 million litres, through its revolutionary Cascade eco root vegetable washing system at its Floods Ferry site in Cambridgeshire. A similar system had already been in use at the company’s Tern Hill site in Shropshire. Overall, Greenvale is aiming to slash its water usage by 80 per cent and cut energy costs of chilling the water by 50 per cent.

In addition to saving water, the Cascade system also delivers substantial product quality and plant hygiene improvements and it has been instrumental in the company hitting its environmental targets set in their Green 15 initiative. This environmental strategy sets out not only to reduce their overall environmental impact of water use, but also reduce carbon emissions and eliminate landfill waste by 2015.
 

Greenvale’s Operations Director Trevor Dear said: “We are delighted to have received a UK Water Efficiency Award in recognition of our efforts at reducing water consumption. Environmental issues are at the very heart of our business, and this is just one of the ways in which we are committed to reaching our target to reduce our impact on the environment. As a company, we are implementing a range of schemes, from improving energy efficiency to investigating renewable energy options.”

This is the sixth major award the company has received for its Cascade system. Previous awards are: The Re-Fresh Innovation of the Year Award, the Food Processing Environmental Initiative Award, The E.D.I.E Award for Water and Wastewater, The Footprint Award for Sustainable Use of Natural Resources and a Golden Green Apple Award. The company has been leading the way in cutting edge technology and has previously won the Queen’s Award for Innovation for its pioneering work in innovation and development of Restrain, a natural modified atmosphere storage system which boasts some significant environmental credentials.

Greenvale AP – Project Cascade, Extended case study (pdf)

Greenvale AP handles 600,000 tonnes of potatoes every year and supplies major retailers and food manufacturers. Greenvale AP is a vertically integrated potato business;it breeds and develops new potato varieties, grows seed and ware potatoes, washes, selects and packs fresh potatoes for the retail, wholesale and food service sectors and peels and slices/dices potatoes for the food ingredient and ready meal sectors through its Swancote Foods business.

While a significant grower of potatoes in its own right, Greenvale AP also boasts the largest and most diverse grower base in the UK.