Food firm’s drive to reduce its emissions

BURTON-BASED Creative Foods, has appointed Willshee’s Waste & Recycling as part of a drive to reduce its carbon emissions by 20% by 2025, maintain the company’s zero waste to landfill promise and to help implement internal practices to remove, reduce and recycle. This includes creating fuel from food waste.

The 230,000 square foot Burton site employs over 350 staff and is essentially four factories in one.

Creative Foods currently produces 32,000 tonnes per year, manufacturing ambient mayonnaise, sauces and dressings, restaurant-quality sous vide meal solutions using the traditional water bath method, as well as chilled sandwich fillings, deli salads and dips in its high care area. It also houses a plant-based only area dealing with patties and ‘meatballs’.

These numerous production processes create several different waste streams, including food waste, and Willshee’s is contracted to support the business to reduce its impact on the environment through recycling.

The service includes providing a metal drum crusher, a DAF skip, liquid food waste tanks, general waste compactors and solid food waste disposal.

Emma Devitt, Creative Foods continuous improvement manager, said: “Willshee’s is well known in the area for being reliable, convenient, and delivering a quality service and, although we have only recently started to work with them, this is already proving to be correct. Willshee’s is helping us with a variety of progressive waste programmes, including turning our food waste into fuel, to ensure that we are dealing with our refuse in the most responsible way possible.”

Willshee’s managing director Dean Willshee added: “It was great to see Creative Foods come to Burton and we are incredibly proud to be working with this global business. More and more of our customers are adapting best practice around zero waste to landfill and reducing their carbon footprint. Creative Foods’ use of our food waste services is particularly significant as it means that all of its food waste now goes to an anaerobic digestion plant to create fuel. It’s all about reduce, reuse, repair and recover.”