Green Dragon accolade for dairy farming co-operative

WELSH milk just got even greener after a farm co-operative bagged an environmental accolade for its work on carbon emissions.

As a major cheese-maker, producing more than 10,000 tonnes of the stuff each year, South Caernarfon Creameries (SCC) is an energy-intensive business that also uses huge amounts of water.

In a bid to improve its green credentials, the Chwilog-based creamery has targeted every aspect of the business.

As well as introducing new energy-efficient milk tankers, it has cut the amount of cheese that drops to the floor during production and packaging.

In the past 12 months SCC has slashed almost 7% in its electricity usage, 9% in boiler oil and 8.5% in water.

The work has paid off, with the co-operative now achieving Level Three of the Welsh Green Dragon standard.

Company secretary Elwyn Jones said the reductions were driven by financial and ethical considerations.

“Making high-quality cheese in commercial qualities and to high standards uses lots of resources in terms of power and water,” he said.

“We have to maintain a constant temperature of 9°C for maturing the cheese, we have to refrigerate for storage and we have to heat water for cleaning.

“We are a big and complex company and we have to look at our energy, electricity and water use at a time when we are expanding.”

Overall SCC said it is now 13% ahead of its targets for energy reduction.

Each year the creamery uses more than six million kW hours of electricity, 1.5 million litres of boiler oil and 170,000 tons of water – enough to fill 68 Olympic swimming pools.

All this to process almost 150 million litres of milk into a range of products led by its Dragon Cheese brand.

Haulage emissions are also high, with its 13-vehicle fleet averaging more than 1,000 miles a week.

To mitigate the latter, SCC spent £600,000 on three DAF tankers and a DAF tractor unit. These have 7% lower emissions.

Mr Jones said the next target was to reach Level Four on the Green Dragon scale.

“We’re not resting on our laurels,” he said.

“The top level of Five is our ultimate aim.”