Founded in 1962, the Calgary Italian Bakery continues today as a family owned and operated business serving western Canada. One of the largest, independent bakeries in the region, Calgary Italian Bakery Ltd.
Alberta Agriculture and Forestry and Provision Coalition partnered with CIBL on a food and resource conservation initiative to explore and resolve food loss + waste and related utility consumption within their operation. This initiative involved piloting of Provision Coalition’s on-line Food Loss + Waste Toolkit in tandem with a facility food waste prevention assessment conducted by Enviro-Stewards.
Highlights
- $191,000 in resource savings identified with an aggregate payback of 0.6 years ($47,340 investment required)
- 110,500 kg of food waste (42%) can be reduced
- 360,000 kWh of electricity (18%), 134,000 m3 of natural gas (32%) can be saved and Scope 1 & 2 Greenhouse Gas emissions can be reduced by 561 tonnes/year (23%)
Food Loss + Waste Reduction Opportunities
Opportunity 1 | $19,000
Improve the bread line dough transfer.
Opportunity 2 | $31,000
Improve Forming Process
Improving the forming process and conveyance of dough prior to proofing through process modification and possibly equipment upgrade will improve English muffin consistency
Opportunity 3 | $10,000
Reduce Rate of Burned Muffins
Burned muffins account for 20% of waste in this category. The cause is to be further determined; however, rectifying this area of loss would result in an 8,000 kg reduction of waste.
"This project has provided us with valuable insight on how to improve our operations. The Calgary Italian Bakery Ltd. has a longstanding commitment to the community and our role as a local business. We understand now that with a few relatively simple process changes and upgrades we can find significant production savings for the company and the environment.” - Louis J. Bontorin, VP Sales and Administration, Calgary Italian Bakery Ltd.
Utilities Assessment & Conservation Opportunities
A concurrent utility conservation assessment was also undertaken at CIBL that included identifying the associated energy and water reductions where food waste was occurring.
The assessment revealed eighteen utility conservation opportunities (electricity, natural gas, water) within the operation. The total value of implementing the conservation measures is estimated at $48,000, plus approximately $17,000 in greenhouse gas-related savings.
The utility breakdown as a percentage of total cost at CIBL was: 68% on electricity, 29% on natural gas and 3% on water. The largest consumers of electricity were the air compressors, estimated at close to 19% of the facility wide consumption, followed by conveyors, vacuums and miscellaneous motors at nearly 14% of consumption.
Establishing and minimizing the bun oven preheat requirement would reduce unnecessary runtime and result in a reduction of 11,000 kWh/year of electricity, and 20,000 m3/year of natural gas, which translates into savings of $5,400/year, and $4,000/year, respectively. The payback for this opportunity is immediate.
Minimizing exhaust and make-up air flow rates could result in a reduction of 38,000 kWh/year of electricity, 75,000 m3 /year in natural gas and $20,000/year in savings.
Reducing compressed air leaks and optimizing the compressed air system operations could result in a reduction of 198,000 kWh/year of electricity and $20,000/year in savings.
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Canada’s Food Waste Problem
In Canada, 43% of avoidable food waste occurs in processing and manufacturing, presenting enormous opportunity for manufacturers to take action to positively impact the environment—and their bottom line. Avoidable waste costs approximately $49.5 billion each year, reduces the supply of food available to eat and contributes to climate change through methane emissions in landfill.
Funding for this project has been provided by:
Thank you to our project partners:
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