Green initiatives are ‘chip and win’ for McCain
McCAIN Foods, the Scarborough-based chip giant, is hoping to inspire other firms to follow in its green footsteps following the success of its carbon and cost cutting initiatives.
The firm has spent the last four years and £20m introducing a series of eco-friendly measures including a wind farm and waste water treatemnt plant to generate energy at its biggest factory in Whittlesey near Peterborough.
According to Bill Bartlett, McCain’s corporate affairs director, the firm has reduced carbon emissions by 17,000 tonnes a year.
Businesses from across Yorkshire were given an insight into the family-owned firm’s achievements at the launch of the North Yorkshire Green Business Club on the East Coast.
The York-based club is supported by Yorkshire Forward programme, Co2Sense Yorkshire and the European Regional Development Fund and is working in partnership with York and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce to help businesses meet the challenge of a low carbon economy.
Mr Bartlett said that the carbon reduction initiatives by McCain Food GB, which has its global headquarters in Canada and opened its first UK base at Scarborough in the late 1960s, were driven by sound business sense as well as a desire to combat climate change.
He said: “We operate in a highly-competitive market with growing competition from continental Europe so it makes sense to embrace low carbon measures where they enable us to reduce operating costs at the same time.”
He added that the company had implemented green efficiency measures throughout its `field-to-fork’ operation.
These ranged from how the groups of farmers, which grow the 750,000 tonnes of potatoes it requires each year use machinery to how its palletised products are transported throughout the UK and energy generation and use at its factories.
In Scarborough, a significant investment in a new lighting scheme has enabled McCain Foods to reduce the electricity needed in the cold stores at by more than 70% and its CO2 emissions by 72 tonnes a year by switching to 94W LED bulbs from 400W sun-lamps.
At Peterborough £5m has been invested in a low rate anaerobic reactor, which converts degradable material in waste water to biogas and electricity meeting a further 10% of the site’s energy needs.
North Yorkshire Green Business Club co-ordinator, Louise Woollen, said she was pleased at the turnout.
“Bill Bartlett’s talk was inspiring and shows what practical measures can be taken. It is early days yet for our initiative but so far we are pleased with the response from east coast businesses,” she added.
