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Vreugdenhil takes steps with Tomorrow's Dairy
Vreugdenhil Dairy Foods is taking increasingly bigger steps with its own sustainability program Tomorrow's Dairy. This is reported in the company's Sustainability Report 2024. The company is making steady progress in reducing emissions, but is also encountering obstacles.
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According to mentioned report By the end of 2024, around 80 of the approximately 850 suppliers were participating in the program. In the course of 2025, 70 are expected to join, bringing the total to 150. This will put Vreugdenhil halfway to the final target of 300 participants in 2030. This group will then have reduced CO2 emissions by approximately 20% compared to 2018.
The dairy company is trying to reduce emissions and also the consumption of energy and water in many ways. It is trying to do this by generating more sustainable energy itself, but solar panels, for example, only provide a fraction of the energy consumption required for the production of milk powders. That is why there is also a strong focus on more energy-efficient production and recovery of residual heat. There is also a strong search for savings in transport, but such savings remain difficult, as stated in the annual report.
Reducing water consumption is also a tough problem, it turns out. For example, various saving options were used in the factory in Scharsterbrug, but last year it did not lead to much water saving, because an extra de-creaming installation was installed. That action did pay off in other areas, however.
In addition to approximately 750 million kilos of milk from its own suppliers, Vreugdenhil Dairy Foods processes the same amount of additional milk and dairy products.