Cargill invests $1.8 million toward energy efficiency in Colorado beef plant
Recent investments by Cargill at its Fort Morgan, Colo., beef processing plant, totaling approximately $1.8 million, have increased the facility’s energy efficiency and reduced the use of electricity, natural gas and associated costs. High efficiency florescent lighting was installed through the entire plant and a new, higher efficiency, boiler was recently installed. These, and other, energy efficiency improvements have resulted in a 10 percent reduction of natural gas use over the past three years, a 5 percent decrease in electricity use and an 8 percent increase in biogas recovery.
“I grew up on a small farm in Minnesota and know how important it is to properly manage every resource and waste nothing,” said Nicole Johnson-Hoffman, assistant vice president and general manager at the Fort Morgan plant. “Managing a large beef processing facility means that we do the same things that are done on small farms or small-scale beef processing operations, only we do it on a much larger scale. Because we focus our attention on doing both small and large tasks well, we have been able to achieve a high enough level of energy efficiency whereby every fifth head of cattle we harvest for beef is done so using renewable energy resources, and we’re proud of that fact.”