Powering the food and drink manufacturing sector
We help food and drink manufacturers stay ahead by improving their operational resilience and production efficiency.
As costs rise, margins shrink and the demands of regulators and consumers become ever more exacting, the pressures on manufacturers to minimise waste and employ resources efficiently rise. Our experience and expertise underpin an end-to-end delivery model enabling flexible, innovative energy solutions that can help cut costs and downtime, ensure operational resilience, safeguard product quality and strengthen your brand.
As costs rise, margins shrink and the demands of regulators and consumers become ever more exacting, the pressures on manufacturers to minimise waste and employ resources efficiently rise. Our experience and expertise underpin an end-to-end delivery model enabling flexible, innovative energy solutions that can help cut costs and downtime, ensure operational resilience, safeguard product quality and strengthen your brand.
The pressures are rising
Raw material, energy and labour costs are rising, while stagnating consumer incomes and pressure from retailers make pricing options ever more constrained. In the food and drink industry, decent margins seem increasingly elusive. At the same time consumers, whose confidence has been shaken by high profile scandals and perceived lack of traceability, are becoming ever-more demanding – for healthier, free-from and plant-based options, and impeccable environmental and sustainability credentials. Meanwhile, pressure from innovative competitors necessitates increased spend on product development, and food safety regulations get ever more stringent with tough penalties for non-compliance, meaning life as a food and drink manufacturer has never been more challenging.
Energy expertise is key
We have extensive experience of working with food and drink manufacturers, and a deep understanding of the challenges they face and the impact on energy:
- Energy-intensive production and storage, using refrigeration, heating, air compressors and other energy-intensive equipment, mean high energy costs
- Reliability issues, putting food safety and quality at risk
- Perishable products, allowing little or no margin for production glitches
- Increasing pressures from regulators and consumers for energy sustainability
- Ever-greater process automation – ever-less tolerant of unstable energy supply
But we don’t just understand these challenges; we address them for our clients every day.
50%
of electricity use across 2,000 food and drink manufacturing sites was attributable to freezing and chilling processes (Food and drink processing report, The Carbon Trust)
£78m
is the cost of over half of all food recalls ($100m). (What’s on your plate?, Deloitte 2017)
57%
of US food and drink execs say their companies will introduce new products to grow sales in next 12 months (Economic Contribution and Growth Opportunities Report, Food & Drink Federation)
40%
reduction in energy costs can be achieved through CHP, with a capital payback in 3–5 years (Centrica Business Solutions)
75%
energy costs savings are available by substituting LED for older lighting technologies (Centrica Business Solutions)
20%
equipment uptime improvements can be delivered by predictive maintenance technologies (Deloitte, 2017)
