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© Imperial College London

Waste Reduction in the Chilled Food Sector

Anne Norton

(PhD Student)


Products manufactured by companies in the Chilled Food sector include

• Recipe Dishes/ready meals

• Fresh Pasta

• Chilled Pizza

• Delicatessen Products

• Sliced Meats

• Prepared Vegetables

• Salad Products

• Dressed Salads

• Dressings

• Dips

• Sushi

• Chilled Soups

• Chilled Sauces

• Pies, Flans and Quiches

• Sandwiches

• Sandwich Fillings

• Desserts

• Prepared Fruit

Short shelf life - must be kept chilled to maintain safety and/or quality


Questions to be addressed

• Where does most waste arise in the chilled food supply chain (from farm gate to retail outlet)?

• What are the root causes of waste?

• How might the quantity of waste be reduced?


Methodology to be used

Sustainable Value Stream Mapping (SVSM)• Proposed by Simons and Mason (2002)

– Based on Value Stream Mapping (VSM), a diagnostic technique used to visualize the value stream of a specific product

– VSM is widely used to support the implementation of Lean Manufacturing methods

– Aim of Lean Manufacturing is to drive out waste caused by operational inefficiency


Lean Manufacturing

– An approach to manufacturing initiated by the Japanese car company, Toyota

– Involves eliminating waste by re-thinking the manufacturing process

– Minimize activities that absorb resources but create no value

– Greater benefits when entire value stream is considered (both intra- and inter-company)


The Seven Wastes (Ohno, 1988)

• Overproduction

• Waiting (by operators and machines)

• Transportation of materials

• Unnecessary or overcomplicated processes

• Excess stock or materials

• Excess movement by operators

• Defective products

Result – low productivity, poor quality, increased costs and wasted resources


Lean Thinking (Womack and Jones, 2003)

• Five basic principles:– Define value by specific product (value can

only be defined by the customer)– Identify the value stream on the basis of a

single product (or product family)– Make value flow without interruptions– Let the customer ‘pull’ value from the

producer (production should be demand led)– Pursue perfection (continuous improvement)


Value Stream Mapping (Rother and Shook, 2003)

• Highlights bottlenecks in the production chain, e.g. as build-up of inventory between processes

• Facilitates the identification and measurement of – value-adding (VA) activities – non-value-adding (NVA) activities– necessary but non-value-adding (NNVA)

activities • Aids analysis of information flows


VSM Procedure

• Analyse activities in the current state and categorize as VA, NVA or NNVA

• To achieve a desired future state:

– Eliminate NVA activities

– Minimize NNVA activities

– Optimize VA activities

– Improve information flows, e.g. from retailer to supplier

• The future state becomes the next current state in a process of continuous improvement


Source: Red Meat Industry Forum (2003)


Sustainable Value Stream Mapping extends conventional VSM

• Considers both operational and environmental aspects of the value stream

• Has been used to analyse CO2 emissions arising from the transport steps of various logistics scenarios (Mason et al., 2002)

We aim to use a similar approach to analyse various wastes and their association with value-adding and non-value-adding activities


Extending SVSM

In the context of analysing physical waste:• Identify the avoidable wastes arising from NVA

and NNVA activities• Where practicable, eliminate or reduce these

wastes• Where waste is related to VA activities and

currently appears unavoidable:– Reduce as far as possible by improving efficiency– Where appropriate, identify less harmful replacement

materials– Identify improved methods for waste management,

including re-use, recycling or energy recovery


Wastes typical of the Chilled Food sector

• Solid wastes– Food, cardboard packaging, plastic packaging, metal

containers• Emissions to air

– Greenhouse gases, e.g. from energy usage and refrigerants

– Other permitted discharges to air, e.g. particulates such as seasonings

• Liquid wastes– Water consumption– Trade effluents: (BOD/COD)


General observations from factory visits

• Forecasting is used as an aid to predict the likely size of orders from the retailer

• Generally inaccurate (e.g. by 50 %!)

• Production often starts in advance of receiving the final order

• Can lead to overproduction and waste

• Raw materials have to be held in cold storage to ensure availability – short shelf life



• Many ingredients are supplied fully or partially prepared

• Meat and vegetables supplied in sealed plastic bags, in secondary packaging (plastic or cardboard)

• Wet ingredients supplied in plastic buckets with lids (sometimes lined with plastic bag) or in pouches

• Dry ingredients supplied in plastic/paper sacks

• Fairly small quantities, e.g. 10kg, industry standard for ease of handling

Therefore large quantities of packaging waste



• Automated production lines– More waste, mainly due to losses in pipework/hoppers,

but also damaged packs– Greater accuracy in delivering specific weights, so fewer

under- and over-weights– Cannot be used for ‘lumpy’ sauces

• Manual production lines– Generally, less waste– Less accurate weights, so more under- and over-

weights, especially in ‘healthy lifestyle’ products– Greater flexibility in the types of product, e.g. ‘lumpy’

ingredients


In summary

To reduce waste:• Identify NVA activities and associated physical wastes

- ELIMINATE• Identify NNVA activities and associated physical

wastes - MINIMIZE• Identify VA activities and associated physical wastes

- OPTIMIZE through continuous improvement

Our research aims to show that SVSM provides the insights needed to bring about improvements in operational efficiency and reductions in physical waste throughout the value stream


References

Mason, R, Simons, D, Peckham, C and Wakeham, T (2002) Wise Moves Modelling Report: Life Cycle Modelling CO2 Emissions for lettuce, apples and cherries, URL:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_freight/documents/page/dft_freight_508272-22.hcsp

Ohno, T (1988) Toyota Production System: Beyond Large Scale Production, Productivity Press, New York

FCC/RMIF (2003) Cutting Costs – Adding Value in Red Meat, Food Chain Centre, Watford/Red Meat Industry Forum, Milton Keynes

Rother, M and Shook, J (2003) Learning to See: Value Stream Mapping to Create Value and Eliminate Muda, Version 1.3, Lean Enterprise Institute, Brookline, USA

Simons, D and Mason, R (2002) Environmental and transport supply chain evaluation with sustainable value stream mapping, Proceedings of the 7th Logistics Research Network Conference, Birmingham

Womack, JP and Jones, DT (2003) Lean Thinking, 2003 Edition, Simon and Schuster UK Ltd, London

© imperial college londonpage 1 waste reduction in the chilled food sector anne norton (phd...

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