Firms face ‘almighty’ sustainability challenge

The food industry must grapple with producing more food for a growing world population while reducing its environmental impact, according to Andrew Kuyk, Food and Drink Federation director of sustainability and competitiveness.

He was speaking at Food Manufacture​’s industry round table on sustainability, held at the London headquarters of legal firm Eversheds last week.
Kuyk said the food industry had to do several things simultaneously: “It’s got to increase output to meet increased demand; it’s got to do that more efficiently; but it’s also got to do it in a way that does not make the climate change situation worse - not add to its environmental impact. That’s one hell of a challenge.”
However, Kuyk added: “If one of the effects of climate change is that we get some increase in comparative advantage, it means that the UK and parts of northern Europe may actually be able to increase agricultural output. And we need a viable and competitive UK food manufacturing industry to take advantage of that.”
The round table - sponsored by Eversheds, British Gas and pump manufacturer Seepex - also heard from Envirowise head of retail, food and drink, Matthew Rowland-Jones. He described how some UK food manufacturers were doing their bit to meet these challenges and become more resource efficient into the bargain.
One of the main goals, said Rowland-Jones, was to reduce to zero the carbon footprint of companies. “Even in the current economic climate, the environmental agenda has not gone away,” he said. “For a lot of companies that we work with at Envirowise … waste is built into the process, so people expect there to be a certain amount of waste in their factory, whereas actually what you should be doing is driving for zero waste coming out of your factory or production process because that material is costing you resources.”
Rowland-Jones described various hidden resource inefficiencies that were common in factories, including those associated with stock returns; raw material costs; handling and storage; transport; labour; damaged stock; utility use; and wasted time and effort. “Identifiable costs [such as waste, utility bills and taxation] would be something like 4-5% of turnover but those hidden costs would be much more.”
Rowland-Jones presented examples of projects carried out with pasty maker Ginsters and organic yogurt producer Yeo Valley to improve resource efficiency use. He also outlined another project with an unnamed ready meals manufacturer which, following a massive shift in production, had experienced a 4% rise in production losses. “That 4% was costing them something like £1M a year,” he said.
“So the potential for that company, if they took the advice and recommendations that we made, was that they would have saved themselves £1M a year and become greener by becoming less resource wasteful. So, it’s not necessarily about spending money to get green credentials.”