Food & Beverage Industry

Supporting sustainability journeys in the food and beverage industry

Equipped with more than 50 years of experience, we are proud to be a strong partner in providing different energy services for the food and beverage sector. We partner with energy intensive businesses such as dairies and factories producing food ingredients, confectionary, and different kinds of beverages.

Our customer’s high ambition in sustainability is driven by consumer demands and gives a clear direction to our customer collaborations. Our strength is our deep understanding of the customer’s production process and needs – and the connection to more efficient solutions for energy, water and waste. The goal with the solutions we develop together with our customers is to improve both profitability as well as reduce the environmental impact.

 

The volume of steam is a major cost component and we sought to find different solutions throughout our production process. At the same time, we wished to reduce our carbon footprint and to take our sustainability targets into account. The new evaporation method solution proposed by Adven meets both these requirements.

Heikki Vahtera
Plant Manager at IFF FinnFeeds Finland
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How we bring value

Companies in the food and beverage industry many times raise the bars for other sectors in terms of sustainability in the production processes and supply chains. We help our customers succeed in delivering on such ambitious sustainability roadmaps. In our partnerships, we don’t only bring in the necessary investment funds but also the expertise in choosing the right technology, in project execution, operations and maintenance. Together, we make the desired change happen.

Energy efficiency and energy savings

To find potential in the details, we strive to see the bigger picture. We always look at our customers’ energy use from a holistic perspective, which means that before we build any new production capacity, we analyze the energy system as such. There may be potential in heat coming from a cooling process that can be recovered by using heat pumps or other sources of excess heat not captured from the process. Since evaporation is a focal process step in the food and beverage industry, we can help our customers make their energy systems more effective by introducing new evaporation technology. With the use of MVR-technology (Mechanical Vapor Recompression) we have helped many of our customers to reduce their total steam consumption.

Supporting low carbon roadmaps

In recent years, major investments have been made in the food and beverage sector to convert energy supply from fossil to renewable fuels. Thousands of tons of carbon dioxide emissions have been reduced thanks to this transition – but it doesn’t stop there. Many food and beverage companies have committed to Science Based Target Initiative’s Net-Zero Standard, demanding a halving of emissions by 2030. We support customers in delivering on their short- and long-term plans, for example by finding clever ways of reusing excess heat or by building new energy capacity to be able to phase out fossil fuels.

Untapped potential in effluent water treatment

Industrial energy and water use are closely tied together. In using our holistic approach, we often discover a lot of untapped potential in the water treatment. As substantial quantities of water and steam are consumed in various process phases the cost savings arise from implementing closed water cycles and more efficient evaporation. By converting sludge and other excess biomaterials to biogas, we can help our customers generate even more savings from nutrient recovery and biogas production.

Achieving BAT requirements

The European Union has recently updated the BREF — a Best Available Techniques (BAT) Reference Document – for the food, drink, and milk industry. The BREF features best practice solutions and techniques for preventing or minimizing the environmental impacts of operations. It includes Associated Emission Level (AEL) standards for air, land and water, a standard that is to be implemented on a country level. By December 2023, these levels — including those associated with water — must be met within a given range. At Adven, we support our customers in achieving requirements in line with, or stricter than, the BAT requirements. As our energy and water solutions are delivered as a service, we already at the development stage consider the relevant requirements on a local and European level. In addition, our long-term customer collaborations of at least 10-15 years, means there will likely be new sets of requirements published within the contractual period. This too we take into consideration when dimensioning the solution.

Savings and revenue from side streams

Some common side streams in the food and beverage industry are raw materials like lactose, various fats and bones to name a few. These interesting residuals with monetary value often go to waste after the production process. We can help our customers harness these either for reuse, or to be further processed into products that can be sold.

Years of experience in cold production

Thanks to nearly two decades of experience in implementing and operating the cold and cooling processes within Food and Beverage industries, we are proud to be an experienced producer of industrial cold in our field. Cold production needs vary from fridge to freezer temperatures depending on the needs. Natural coolants, ammonia and carbon dioxide, are typically used in the cooling process. The heat coming from the cooling process can also be recovered by using heat pumps and directed for instance into the low-temperature network instead of being released to the outdoors. The key to the energy solution in Food and Beverage sector is that the energy generated by the cooling process is utilized as effectively as possible.

Kristaps Greidāns

Industry Lead, Food & Beverage

Global
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