sustainability
At Gourmet Baker we are committed to reducing our environmental impact. This commitment is a cornerstone of our corporate values and strategic goals. In 2009 we conducted a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of our entire business to help us better understand how our facilities and the lifecycle of our products impact the environment and how we can take steps to reduce our footprint. We will repeat this assessment every year to measure our performance against established goals.
The LCA results and analysis have allowed us to identify and prioritize key projects to improve Gourmet Baker’s sustainability practices in several areas: packaging, energy efficiency, sustainable manufacturing practices, waste management, transportation, and improved end-of-life packaging.
Here are just a few areas that we are focusing our efforts on:
- Reducing raw material loss by reworking dough and reusing trim
- Reducing our packaging impact by 5% by 2013
- Reducing packaging utilization and waste generation
- Utilizing reusable and recyclable packaging for shipment
- Offering sustainable packaging alternatives to our customers
- Conversion to PET from PS plastic packaging
- Developing sustainable manufacturing practices for each site
- Conducting energy efficiency audits in our facilities to reduce energy consumption
- Retrofitting lighting to more energy efficient fixtures and bulbs
- Installing variable drive motors on areas where we can to improve energy efficiency
- Monitoring product inventory levels to reduce energy within frozen product storage
- Load consolidation and the use of carriers that are enrolled in the Smartway Carrier program to lower emission during product distribution
- Recovery of our food waste for animal feeding
- Replace a dough CO2 cooling system to reduce our direct CO2 emission
