Greenvale’s Project Cascade vegetable cleaning system has saved more than sixty million litres of water, slashing consumption by 75 per cent at the company’s fresh potato processing plant at Tern Hill, Shropshire, one year after trial operations began.
Also at the site, effluent is down 50 per cent, electricity used to cool the water fell by 50 per cent and waste removal is down 65 per cent and it has been recommended to become the industry standard system.
The potato supplier is is offering to arrange visits to the Tern Hill site - where more than 1,000 tonnes of soil have been recycled - to show the Cascade system to potential users.
The company believes that if the system were adopted across the UK vegetable processing industry it could deliver enormous benefits to the environment.
The consultant Greenvale commissioned to undertake an independent assessment of Cascade concluded her report with the recommendation that “this system should be set as the new standard for crop washing”.
Martin Lewis, site manager at Tern Hill, said: “The system is incredibly efficient - the product is much cleaner and we’ve made big savings from the reduction in rejection rate for dirty potatoes. Even more impressively, we’ve had no cases of bacterial breakdown this year. Not one. That’s a significant breakthrough: with standard potato cleaning systems, it’s a major issue.”
“It costs much less to run that a traditional potato washing system. In fact, total savings at the Tern Hill site amount to well in excess of £100,000, in the first year alone.”
The award has won several accolades including the Environmental Initiative Food Processing award, the Re:Fresh Innovation of the Year Award. Further work is being done to improve the project.
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