Minimizing material flows and utility use to increase profitability in the food and drink industry

This paper, and the project it describes, identifies opportunities that food and drink companies can take to simultaneously cut costs and reduce waste production. All savings from a waste minimization project can be expressed as savings in raw materials, manpower, energy consumption, packaging, consumables, water and effluent. The project showed that savings in raw materials carried the greatest potential for financial savings. The saving in reduced disposal costs was proven to be insignificant for the companies in comparison to the savings due to increased raw material yield. This confirms the Importance for food and drink companies of looking for reduction of waste at source rather than end-of-pipe solutions. Cost saving opportunities stemming from electricity and water usage and effluent generation did not individually carry the same potential as the other areas, but a large number of smaller initiatives were easily implemented, which led to substantial aggregated savings. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.