Capespan has announced a new project to quantify its use of resources, which it hopes will lead to energy reduction target-setting and has already seen it use river transport as a freight solution.
Capespan Ltd managing director Ronan Lennon said: “Striving to improve our energy efficiency isn’t just about being green. With the recent hikes in energy prices, it has now become a business imperative. Raising awareness and encouraging staff to think ‘environment and energy’ will form a key component of our business development. This year we are embarking on a project to comprehensively measure resource utilisation within our UK operations. We will then use the data as a baseline for further improvement targets.”
The Re:fresh Importer of the Year has developed its UK operations to minimise fruit transport and handling within the UK market. The company’s operational hub is based directly on the quayside at the Port of Sheerness. Once consignments arrive, they are discharged directly into Capespan’s facility where it can be quality assured before it is delivered to the customer. And when fruit arrives by container at the alternative port of Tilbury, Capespan now uses the services of a river barge and has reduced road movements of its fruit containers from Tilbury to Sheerness by half. “Every barge trip can save at least 40 vehicle movements from the roads,” said Lennon.
In addition to striving for an ultra-efficient distribution model, Capespan is also reducing packaging and improving waste management within its business. For example, it now sells its cucumbers to the Co-op without individual sleeves, using moisture retaining carton liner instead. This represents a saving of 8 tonnes of packaging a year.
“The re -use and re-cycling of packaging materials within our business has reduced waste collections by 30 per cent while new carton procurement has decreased from 147 tonnes to 33 tonnes within the last two years,” said Lennon. “In addition, we now also supply all our food waste to a local farm as feed or for composting. I think this illustrates how an environmentally sensitive approach is very often a commercial approach.”
Lennon also believes it is an important part of Capespan’s corporate responsibility to encourage sustainable production practices at source. “We have some very exciting and innovative examples within our supplier base,” he said, “including a UK tomato producer who uses anaerobic gasification to heat greenhouses and one of Capespan’s pear growers who uses solar power to help run 24 fridges.”
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