The truth is that there are countless things to consider when building in a more sustainable way, only some of which pertain to energy generation. We discovered this when we built our plant following the LEED certification standard. For example, it turned out that two fairly boring technologies, heat exchangers and heat recovery on our boiler, enabled us to cut our energy usage by almost 40% at peak operating levels. In a facility that has a drier over 50 feet tall, that’s a lot of energy saved. We also use almost exclusively variable speed drives, another boring but highly energy efficient process.
We also handle water differently in our facility. Raw whey is over 99% water, so we bring in a lot of water every day. After we separate out the water, we filter and reuse it in our facility. This water re-use means we use very little additional water from the city. We also put two bio-filters on our property and landscaped the site using native plants and no mow grass. The result is that our bio-filters infiltrate the majority if not all of the storm water run off from our parking lot, truck driveways and roof. That’s a lot of water that would otherwise eventually end up in the Mississippi river that’s ending up recharging our aquifer instead.
Where materials come from is also important for sustainable building. We are really proud that virtually all of the equipment in our plant, including 14 miles of stainless steel piping, was provided by Wisconsin companies. This happened because of the state’s long standing expertise in the dairy industry means that many of the best suppliers were local. All of the concrete used in building our plant contains the highest proportion of recycled fly ash possible without compromising structural integrity. We use low flow fixtures, motion control sensors on lighting and windows that allow natural light into all of our production spaces in the plant. This is good for our power bill and for the well being of our employees.
Are there more things we could have done to be even "greener"? Absolutely. The trick in a manufacturing environment is to find every opportunity to implement cost effective sustainability solutions. We found this isn’t a zero sum game where we have to choose between being green and being cost effective; it is, rather, a time when being smart about touching the planet lightly really pays off.
Where your whey comes from matters.
When you think of a dairy farm, do you think of black and white happy cows grazing in green fields, or do you think of cows lined up standing all their lives on concrete and laying down on sand in their stall? Do you think of a crop rotation that includes legumes and biomass, or corn on corn on corn? Do you think of digestors processing thousands of gallons of waste, or waste naturally fertilizing the fields?
Dairy farming has changed a lot over the past few decades. Farms are bigger, cheese plants are bigger, whey plants are bigger. All of this "big" hasn’t enabled farms to be any more profitable, and maybe less so. It’s moved dairy production from most states in the US to a handful. It’s made dairy farms a new point source for water pollution and increased our dependence on foreign oil in our pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers.
In Wisconsin, we are very lucky that early on, our specialty cheese industry recognized that only by adding value to milk through specialty and artisan cheeses would the industry survive here. We still have over 150 cheese plants in the state, many of which are very small and process milk from surrounding small dairy farms.
We know where our whey comes from because we work with small specialty and artisan cheese plants in Wisconsin. These are our some of our supplying friends:
Roth Kase.
Roth Kase is the home to many fine cheeses, the most well known of which is called Grand Cru gruyere. We take the whey from Roth kase’s Gruyere and use it in our rBGH free whey.
Carr Valley.
Sid is a vertible rock star of artisan cheese, having won more awards than any other cheesemaker in the country for making things like goat cheese rubbed in cocoa (cocoa cardona).
Westby Cooperative Creamery.
Westby has been making rBGH free butter, cheese, and cottage cheese forever: their producers never did jump on the BGH bandwagon. They also have their own organic milk producers and make a range of organic cheeses.
K and K Cheese.
Their milk still arrives in cans from their supplying Amish cooperative. This is one of a very few plants left in the country that is allowed to receive milk in cans.
Cedar Grove Cheese.
Bob is a thought leader and tireless advocate for sustainable dairy farms and processing. He processes his own waste water in a “living machine” greenhouse. The water he discharges into the neighboring creek is cleaner than the water upstream of his plant.
