![]() ![]() Waste heat generated by refrigeration is captured and used to pasteurise drinks. Instead of traditional gas-fired heating and cooling systems, the Blender employs a heat pump which works much like a domestic version. Inside, everything is electric, from the machines that fill and seal bottles to fully-automated robots that pick and pour drums of fruits and purees. ![]() On-site wind turbines, which currently going through the planning process, will eventually take over. Thousands of solar panels supply about 7% of the site’s electricity, with the rest coming from a renewable tariff on the grid. On a stroll around the gleaming, strawberry-scented factory – the smell changes each day depending on what recipe is being mixed up – the Blender’s site manager shows Raconteur how it all works.įirst up, the factory is designed to run entirely on renewable power. That meant designing a new factory from scratch with sustainability considered at every stage. “As the team started to look at it, we asked, if we’re going to build – and this goes right back to the DNA of Innocent – how do we do it in the right way?” says Karina O’Gorman, European head of ‘force for good’. But the company soon realised there was scope to do more. When Innocent first started talking about bringing it all in-house, the aim was to save money and cut down on road miles from transport between facilities. We had a place doing cold ingredients, a place doing blending, many other places doing bottling: every step was separate.” “So our historical supply chain was really segregated. “24 years ago, smoothies weren’t really a thing,” says Emily Wakeford, supply chain lead at Innocent, as ships glide past the Blender office’s windows. One roadblock in achieving those environmental targets was the fact that Innocent outsourced all of its processing and bottling to a patchwork of suppliers across the UK and Europe. Why bring manufacturing in-house? The Blender A B-Corp from 2018, Innocent gives 10% of its profits to charity and has set a science-based target of being carbon neutral by 2025 and net zero by 2040. But the company might be almost as well known for its ethos.Įver since it was founded in 1996 by a group of university friends, it has set out its case for “doing business in the right way”. Innocent is a household name in the UK for its colourful, healthy smoothies and juices and quirky branding (its London HQ? Fruit Towers. Despite its unassuming setting, the factory is packed with technology aimed at making it one of the world’s first carbon-neutral, all-electric drinks factories. It sits atop Innocent Drinks’ new €225m (£198m) factory, dubbed the Blender. But on the far side of a scrubby field packed with seagulls pops a familiar halo logo. The largest seaport in Europe stretches for miles in a drab maze of rusted drums, slag heaps and stacks of shipping containers. Rotterdam Port is an unlikely spot for a landmark green investment. ![]()
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