At the end of last week, PepsiCo held a foundation laying ceremony for its new food manufacturing plant Sroda Slaska in Swiete, Poland. The PLN 1bn (£188m) site is the company’s fifth in Poland, and is anticipated to be its most sustainable plant in Europe yet.
Construction of the site is to be completed by 2025.
All of the company’s existing Polish plants are entirely powered by renewable energy, though the new addition will also feature an onsite solar farm to generate its own electricity, and will be built ‘with sustainability at its core’.
PepsiCo Europe’s chief executive Silviu Popovici said: “We’ve been operating and investing in Poland for 30 years. It is a great central hub as our food business grows in Central and Eastern Europe. But growth has to be sustainable. We want our plants to be the greenest, not only in Europe, but around the world. At Sroda Slaska we are re-imagining the future of food production. We want to create a model facility for sustainability in Europe.”
The site will harvest rainwater for onsite use and waste products will be repurposed where possible – for example potato waste from manufacturing processes will be used in a biomass generator to provide power to the plant. Potato crops will be supplied by local farmers under the Polish Sustainable Farming Program – a scheme set up 28 years ago in collaboration with PepsiCo. At present, the drinks giant receives over 230,000 tonnes of potatoes under this initiative every year, with an additional 60,000 tonnes per year expected to be added through the new plant.
Pepsi has previously set a target of curbing its emissions by 40% by 2030, and reaching full carbon neutrality by 2040. The group is also working to slash its plastic waste, investing in recycling schemes, and the American branch of the firm is looking specifically into compostable waste alternatives.
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