One year after the grand opening of America’s first LEED® Gold certified food manufacturing plant, Kettle Foods is seeing the savings of building green.
“When we decided to go for green, or in this case gold, with LEED® certification of our new factory, we knew it was the right thing to do,” said Tim Fallon, Kettle Foods president, North America. “The bonus is that making our Kettle Brand™ Potato Chips in a more environmentally friendly way is also proving to be good business.”
“When we decided to go for green, or in this case gold, with LEED® certification of our new factory, we knew it was the right thing to do,” said Tim Fallon, Kettle Foods president, North America. “The bonus is that making our Kettle Brand™ Potato Chips in a more environmentally friendly way is also proving to be good business.”
The factory, which produces thousands of bags of the company’s Kettle Brand™ Potato Chips for shipment to the East Coast, began production on May 9, 2007. In line with initial energy- and water-saving estimates, the Beloit, Wis., facility is yielding both environmental and economic benefits, including:
- Annual energy savings (gas and electric) of 20 percent, translating to an estimated cost reduction of $110,000 on natural gas and $51,000 on electricity.
- Annual water savings of $34,000 due to reclamation systems capturing and reusing 3.4 million gallons of water.
- Monthly recycling of 2,300 gallons of waste oil with conversion to biodiesel, an alternative fuel used to power a company fleet of diesel-engine cars called BioBeetles.
- Annual reduction of more than 3 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions resulting from the elimination of shipping lines between Oregon and the Midwest.
