Cargill Creates Sustainable Solutions for Bakery

Despite differences in scale, product format and product type, many baking plants share similar characteristics and face common challenges. CPO has been successful in helping both fresh and frozen bakers grow their bottom lines by maximizing efficiencies across their operations.

Sep 28 2010 --- Cargill Process Optimizers (CPO), a service designed to help food manufacturers grow leaner through operational and sustainability efficiencies, has been introduced at the International Baking Industry Exposition (IBIE) in Las Vegas. CPO helps bakeries and other food manufacturers improve bottom line results by helping them reduce energy and water consumption, reduce yields and enhance their capacity.

"Especially in today's economy, food manufacturers are exploring a variety of cost-saving options to stay competitive," said Dave Ward, general manager, Cargill Process Optimizers. "Whether a bakery needs to squeeze more capacity from existing assets or tackle sustainability goals, CPO delivers pragmatic, actionable solutions with a quick return on investment, usually within two years."

Through its holistic, comprehensive approach, CPO helps food manufactures solve their most challenging business issues, including:
• Maximizing margins as ingredient costs rise and market prices drop
• Maintaining a consistent, safe product
• Optimizing performance of equipment, production systems and throughputs
• Meeting new sustainability demands

Leveraging Cargill's broad knowledge and experience in producing food, agricultural and industrial products, CPO combines process engineering experts with proprietary software tools to assess and recommend improvements to food and beverage manufacturing plants. CPO has helped more than 120 Cargill and customer plants around the world identify opportunities for significant savings and process improvements, such as:
• Improving yields and raw materials usage 2 percent to 5 percent
• Lowering heat and refrigeration energy use 5 percent to 15 percent
• Reducing waste and effluents 5 percent to 25 percent
• Increasing capacity 2 percent to 10 percent
• Minimizing losses during batch changeovers

Specific to bakeries, CPO has helped to identify yield loss points through a combination of detailed mass and energy balances and statistical analysis, reducing overall costs and improving yields. Despite differences in scale, product format and product type, many baking plants share similar characteristics and face common challenges. CPO has been successful in helping both fresh and frozen bakers grow their bottom lines by maximizing efficiencies across their operations.

Meanwhile Horizon Milling has launched EcoFlour sustainability solutions, a new customizable ingredient program that utilizes precision agriculture to use fertilizer more efficiently to reduce energy inputs and improve yields, at the IBIE. The program helps bakery customers satisfy growing consumer demand for eco-friendly products and meet their strategic sustainability goals.

EcoFlour sustainability solutions utilizes technology that combines satellite imagery and soil samples to identify the best use of fertilizer on the farmer's field. The farmer uses this information to apply nutrients to the crop with precision and only where it is needed. Studies show precision agriculture uses less fertilizer than conventional agriculture, uses less energy, and reduces emissions while increasing the amount of wheat grown on the land.

"At Horizon Milling, we help customers innovate around sustainability," said Kyle Marinkovich, marketing manager, Horizon Milling. "With our new EcoFlour sustainability solutions, we design customized programs that link the technology and the supply chain from the farmer to the bakery to help customers execute against their sustainability focus areas. Whether it be reducing carbon in their supply chains or developing new products that satisfy demands of eco-conscious consumers, we can design a solution that helps meet their unique needs."

The program utilizes Horizon Milling's supply chain expertise and can be customized to meet specific customer goals and objectives.

Horizon Milling was recognized for this system by IBIE 2010 with a B.E.S.T. in Baking award for its contribution towards environmental sustainability.