Kettle Foods opened a LEED Gold certified food manufacturing plant a year ago. Now the company is seeing green in building green.
The factory has seen annual energy savings of 20 percent, equivalent to an estimated cost reduction of $110,000 on natural gas and $51, 000 on electricity.
Due to reclamation systems which capture and reuse 3.4 million gallons of water, the factory has seen annual water savings of $34, 000.
The factory recycles 2,300 gallons of waste oil every month, which is converted to biodiesel and used to power the company’s fleet of diesel-engine cars called BioBeetles.
The elimination of shipping lines between Oregon and the Midwest has reduced more than 3 million pounds of CO2 emissions annually.
Kettle Foods also offsets 100 percent of the electricity used to operate both its Salem and Beloit factories with renewable wind power.
Here are some sustainability initiatives that the company announced in February.