Kraft Foods Waste-Reduction Sustainability Success Stories

Kraft Foods is taking action to eliminate waste at its manufacturing plants. The company has reduced net waste from manufacturing plants worldwide 50 percent since 2005 levels1 (measured in kg waste/ton of production).

Kraft Foods’ strategy is simple: generate less waste and find new uses for the waste it does produce. The company is getting results by changing its behavior, business practices and culture. Because solid waste generated from manufacturing accounts for more than 99 percent of Kraft Foods’ total waste, it makes sense to focus on plants. That’s why the company recycles or reuses about 90 percent of manufacturing waste. In some cases, Kraft Foods is even reusing manufacturing by-products as energy sources.

Today, 36 Kraft Foods facilities have achieved zero-waste-to-landfill status, including 24 plants in Europe and 12 facilities in North America. Elsewhere, many plants have made significant reductions through partnerships to put waste to work. Below are success stories from around the world:

• Australia/New Zealand: Employees at Kraft Foods’ chocolate facilities in Claremont and Dunedin have reduced manufacturing waste by 35 and 20 percent respectively, since 2010. And together, the plants eliminated more than 600 metric tons of waste in two years. Employees’ continuous improvement programs seek out ways to minimize waste through engineering and operations – and waste reduction campaigns raise awareness for colleagues across both facilities.

• Austria: Kraft Foods’ Vienna coffee plant has been sending approximately 250 tons of chaff – used coffee bean husks – to a biomass power plant since 2011, creating renewable energy such as heat and electricity for neighboring homes.

• China: Kraft Foods’ Shanghai plant has swapped many inbound shipping containers to reusable cartons, reducing the amount of carton waste by 25 percent – this allows 90 percent of containers to be reused.

• Germany: Kraft Foods’ Fallingbostel plant that makes Philadelphia cream cheese has been zero waste to landfill since 2009. Employees focus on avoiding waste creation through more efficient manufacturing. Any waste produced is sorted for recycling or reuse. Whatever can’t be reclaimed is incinerated for energy recovery.

• Indonesia: Kraft Foods plants in Cikarang and Karawang reduced their manufacturing waste nearly 40 percent in 2011. As most of their waste was from plastic packaging film, the plants found a third party to recycle it into new bags and buckets for others.

• The Philippines: Employees at the Sucat plant reduced manufacturing waste by more than one third since 2008 through greater efficiencies – looking across the entire production line to try to minimize waste creation at critical points – from raw materials to finished goods. The also expanded their materials recovery facility area for better waste segregation.

• Russia: Kraft Foods’ Saint Petersburg coffee plant has reduced the amount of waste it sends to landfills by 90 percent. Incoming coffee bean shipping bags and pallets are reused, and about 15,000 tons of spent coffee grounds are turned into fertilizer for area farms instead of being sent to landfills.

• South Africa: Employees at Kraft Foods’ Port Elizabeth plant have partnered with EnviroServ, a well-known waste management company, with the ultimate goal of sending zero waste to landfill. The plant now sends less than 10 percent of the waste it produces to landfill thanks to employee-led programs such as turning waste into useful materials like animal feed.

• United States: Kraft Foods’ San Leandro and two Fresno, California plants were recently recognized by the state’s Waste Reduction Awards Program (WRAP) for their outstanding efforts: reducing waste to landfill approximately 26 percent since 2009. Employees at the three separate plants making Capri Sun, Kool-Aid, Tang, Maxwell House and Yuban beverages – and Cornnuts snacks — separated materials for recycling and diverted more than 100 tons of food waste – such as corn skins – for use as animal feed. Both the Fresno and San Leandro plants have won numerous WRAP awards in previous years.

United States: Chicago and Naperville, Ill. bakeries – makers of various Nabisco cookies and crackers and Triscuit crackers, respectively – recently became zero waste to landfill facilities at the end of 2011, thanks to steady progress by plant employees over the past several years. The Chicago Bakery’s path to zero landfill began with one employee’s Lean Six Sigma project on landfill reduction in early 2010. Working with partner Sonoco, employees from both plants developed easy-to-use recycling collection points and identified waste-to-energy facilities that could take what couldn’t be recycled, such as cafeteria waste. Together, they streamlined production and found landfill alternatives, increasing recycling rates nearly 50 percent in the past two years.

• United States: Springfield, Mo. cheese plant employees were recently recognized for their commitment to sustainability and accomplishments in waste reduction by the state’s Ozarks GreenScore Gold-level ranking program — designed to educate and recognize area businesses and organizations as they adopt environmentally sustainable practices. Employees’ comprehensive recycling audit kick-started increased recycling across the plant and even identified materials to be re-used as an alternative fuel source. Together, they’ve eliminated about 400 tons of waste per year from scrap cheese, powders and packaging.

• United States: Kraft Foods’ Philadelphia cream cheese plant in Beaver Dam, Wisc. partnered with the city in 2010 and 2011 to build an anaerobic digester that turns whey waste – a regular byproduct of cheese making – into biogas that generates electricity for the local power grid. The digester eliminates the need for whey disposal. This reduces solid waste and improves wastewater quality, which is a win-win for the plant, the city, its people and the environment.

As a food company, Kraft Foods relies on the ability of the earth to produce the raw materials used every day to make its products. Conducting business in a way that respects the intersection of environmental, social and economic responsibility is the right thing to do and it makes good business sense.

With this approach, Kraft Foods is making a delicious difference and building a better world. For more details on the company’s sustainability focus and progress, please visit www.kraftfoodscompany.com and our sustainability web site, www.kraftfoodsbetterworld.com.