HQ FOODS – LIVING RESILIENCE
HQ Foods is one of GreenCape’s members that is a living example of building resilience into one’s business. They are extremely passionate about being sustainable and have made significant efforts to reduce their carbon footprint as much as possible. They have pursued initiatives in water, energy, and waste, as discussed in more detail below.
WATER-SAVING INITIATIVES
They implemented reuse mechanisms in as many areas as possible, e.g. reusing water from equipment cleaning to clean the floor. In areas where no additional water reduction could occur, they implemented staff awareness campaigns to promote behavioral change as well as a continuous improvement program.
RECYCLING INITIATIVES (REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE)
HQ Foods takes the 3R’s of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle very seriously. In an effort to reduce their paper use, they have implemented completely paperless food safety and ordering systems. The two systems have resulted in a drastic reduction of their paper use. The reuse activities focus on sending all packaging material back to the supplier (to be reused for new raw material) and if that is not possible, internal reuse before sending it for recycling. Some examples of internal reuse are listed below;
- The cores from the sellotape rolls are used to collect the label backing, they also similarly reuse the cores from their plastic wrapping,
- Malformed plastic bottles from the plastic bottle plant are grinded back into pellets and reused to form new bottles,
- Broken pallets are repaired and reused,
- Cardboard boxes are cut into sheets and used as dividers on the pallets.
If reuse is not an option, HQ Foods tries to recycle as much as possible. GreenCape has assisted them with some of their problematic waste streams, however, the bulk of the opportunities for recycling were identified by HQ Foods themselves. The various recycling opportunities that they pursue are listed below;
- Paper is sent to Nampak for recycling
- Cardboard that can’t be reused is sent to Scrap Mania (a local recycler
- Organic waste is sent to a local livestock farmer
- Polywoven propylene bags sent to Cape Ewaste (who use it for waste sorting) and Boland bags (who repair and resell the bags)
ENERGY
They installed 326KWp solar panel system in 2013, which resulted in a 15% reduction in their energy costs. The system also reduced HQ Foods carbon footprint by 402 tonnes annually for 25 years (lifetime of the project) which is equal to planting 60 trees every year for 25 years.
OTHER RESILIENCE INITIATIVES
HQ Foods tries to locally source as much of their raw material as possible. Currently, their fresh coriander, apples, carrots, and cabbage are sourced from farmers in the Western Cape. The green and red chilies, tomato paste, peaches, apricots, lemons, achar mangoes, and salt are all sourced from various parts of South Africa. The majority of their packaging if not manufactured internally is also sourced locally.