Turning Waste into Value
In line with Simplot’s zero-waste-to-landfill ambition, we are running multiple workstreams that redirect potential waste into new products and ingredients.
Throughout our potato facilities globally, we upcycle potato byproduct into high quality products and ingredients, ensuring the whole potato is used. An example of this in action is when the potato doesn’t meet our stringent French fry standards, the waste generated goes through a process to be turned into cattle feed which supports the nutrient requirements of our Simplot owned cattle.
In our avocado facilities, we also use the same methodology, to ensure the whole avocado is used. In application, this sees byproducts being turned into fertilizer, bio-fuel and avocado cooking oil.
High Bay, Lower in Impact
Simplot has four high bay freezers across our manufacturing operations in North America. These efficiently designed buildings not only provide more capacity to store our products on site, reducing the amount of movement required before the product arrives at its end user, but they also are helping our efforts by significantly saving energy and reducing emissions across our supply chain.
The way they are designed allows for a smaller refrigeration system that uses less energy but still maintains the freezer at -5°F. At our facility in Caldwell, Idaho, this avoids on average 3,085 metric tons of Co2 equivalent per year and saves 6,686,398 kwh of energy.
Building new plants with best practice sustainability design
At one of our newest potato processing plants located in Ahmedabad, India, we have incorporated a water treatment and reuse system. This design has enabled us to significantly reduce our water intake by an average of 3 million gallons per month.
Turning Waste into Energy
Did you know that four of our potato processing facilities in North America use bio-digesters? This means that we are using a portion of our potato waste to create energy and heat which we put back into the processing facility.