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Robert Wiseman has saved money with water efficiency improvements in the UK
From its small beginnings in 1947 in East Kilbride, Robert Wiseman Dairies now operates six dairies, 14 distribution depots and employs more than 4,700 staff. Almost a third of the UK's daily milk consumption is delivered in their familiar black and white trucks. The company owes much of its success to the fact that it's the only major dairy company operating throughout the UK that focuses only on fresh milk processing and distribution. This focus means that the company can concentrate on efficiency and sustainability.
One of the major costs in milk processing is water. According to Envirowise, the average UK dairy uses 1.3 litres of water for every litre of milk processed, mostly for steam raising and cleaning in place (CIP). The UK's water resources are coming, under increasing stress due to eli mate change and an increasing population, with the result that the cost of mains water supplies is rising. But it doesn't end there. Every litre of milk processed produces, on average, 4,2g of chemical oxygen demand (COD), which is discharged in the wastewater. Many dairies discharge their wastewater directly to sewer where, once again, costs are rising so reducing water use makes economic as well as environmental sense. Robert Wiseman Dairies' sustainability report sets an in-house target of reducing the 2010 water consumption across its network of dairies by 25 per cent by 2015.
Wiseman's water efficiency improvements started with a project at its flagship Bridgwater dairy, which processes 1.25 million litres of milk every day, and is already one of the UK's most water efficient dairies. Its 400,000 litres a day of high COD process wastewater is treated...