We are fully committed to re-use residual water in the production.

Recycling used shower water as new shower water: a crazy idea or maybe not? These are the types of challenges and solutions being worked on by a team of experts in the FrieslandCampina supply chain. In this way, we can reduce our environmental impact. Klaas Vos, Global Sustainability Manager Supply Chain, talks about one of these projects.

"We tend to associate the word 'waste' with bins filled with materials we no longer use, like cardboard, cans and plastic. But if water and energy is not reused, that is also 'waste '. Because much of the waste generated by FrieslandCampina has a potential value, we prefer to talk about residual flows. For example, we can extract valuable substances from residual water from our production facilities and we can use cow manure for clean energy. And while whey was once a waste product in cheese production, now it is a valuable ingredient for infant nutrition."

"Worldwide, nearly 800 million people have no access to basic drinking water facilities. Over two billion people have no access to clean and safe sources of water. We therefore feel it is important to use water responsibly. At our production facilities, we are taking measures to achieve a 20-percent reduction in our water consumption between 2020 and 2025. Ultimately, we are aiming at circular water management. By that, we are fully committed to re-use residual water in the production process. That way we do not waste anything ."

We feel it is important to use water responsibly.

"And we at FrieslandCampina are working hard to achieve this. In our production facility in Borculo, for example, we recently invested in a purification system that upscales condensate. We use a lot of water in this facility, but we also extract a lot of water from our products. A lot of our milk or whey leaves the factory as powder, for example. And we use the residual water that we extract from it. But how exactly does that work? To make milk powder, milk or whey is first evaporated in evaporators. The milk or whey then dries into a concentrate. Finally, we spray dry that concentrate in hot air. The water we take from the evaporators proved to be so good that we were able to re-use it. With a few extra steps, the water is relatively easy to purify into a usable water quality. For safety reasons, we currently only use this water for processes that do not come in contact with our products . In the future, however, we will be able to treat such water flows in the same way as drinking water."

"Borculo's success is an incentive to go further and the approach is also used as a model for savings in other production facilities. Various FrieslandCampina subsidiaries are using a similar process which can also achieve considerable water savings. We have sufficient technical knowledge on board to translate the lessons learned in Borculo to the other companies. For example, our cheese facility in Gerkesklooster recently replaced its whey evaporator with a filtration device. Besides saving energy, this also produces a flow of good-quality water we can re-use in the production and cleaning processes. To expand its knowledge about re-using water, “filtration experts” in FrieslandCampina have drawn up an important document describing techniques, quality criteria and examples of systems in operation."