Climate change is having a significant impact on food and beverage manufacturers, influencing the quality and yield of raw ingredients and the costs involved in producing them. This is forcing many in the sector to think on their feet, adapt quickly and rapidly adopt digital technology to secure a sustainable future. The Manufacturer Editor, Joe Bush, took a whistle stop tour of some manufacturing sites in Spain, known as the fruit and vegetable garden of Europe, to find out what’s going on.
The food and beverage industry is facing challenges that require a transformative change against the backdrop of a more volatile environment. Not only are consumers demanding greater nutritional value from the food and drink they consume, there are also rapidly rising trends around the need for products to have a lower carbon footprint andsustainable/recyclable packaging.
Due to its Mediterranean climate, with hot summers and mild winters, Spain boasts a wide variety, flavour and versatility of products, making food and beverage a key manufacturing sector in the country (much like the UK), amounting to 2.47% of total GDP in 2022.
That being said, the sector also carries one of the highest energy requirements in Spain. At 14% of total industrial energy consumption, it is second only to the iron and steel industry.
The sector also has a high dependence on gas and electricity, as many of the food sector’s subsegments (such as sugar, dairy, olive oil and egg production) use production processes that consume a lot of electricity and heat. Therefore, the sector has experienced an increase in statutory measures to achieve environmental targets and rising costs (which cannot be fully charged to consumers), and these have impacted the bottom line.
In addition, the weather has had its say in recent times, with the country now in its third year of extreme drought. This, combined with the industry’s high energy consumption, reinforces the need for the sector to use more sustainable and resource efficient technologies.
On a mission to save the world’s beer
Founded in 2018, Ekonoke is a start-up company that has set itself the goal of ensuring sustainable cultivation of plants that have a high climate risk. One such crop is hops – not only the vital ingredient that goes into creating the flavour in our favourite beers, it is also a plant that is highly vulnerable to weather fluctuations, drought and high temperatures.
Hops only thrives in porous, sandy soils and, since they grow quickly and have deep roots, they also need plenty of water and a high dosage of potassium, phosphate and nitrogen. During summer months, the hop plant has an intolerance to colder temperatures and needs at least 15 hours of sunlight. However, when the rhizomes – underground shoots that grow horizontally – go dormant in the winter, the hop plant needs periods of frost.
In conclusion, the humble hop is a fickle little plant, meaning that cultivation is almost impossible in large swathes of the world, with meaningful production concentrated to countries between latitudes of 35 and 55 degrees north and south of the equator. And herein lies a problem. Global beer manufacture is coming under threat from the environment, as shifting climatic conditions are beginning to alter how and indeed if, hop plants grow. In bad years productivity per hectare has been known to reduce by up to 30% and quality by a worrying 60%.
On a mission to save the world’s beer, Ekonoke began indoor hop cultivation in 2020. The company has a temporary research centre just north of Madrid, and in October 2023 opened a 1,200m2 pilot facility in Galicia.
Indoor hops are grown hydroponically – without soil. Not only does the clean, controlled environment negate the need for the use of pesticides, the process enables year-round cultivation that is resistant to climate conditions (up to four harvests a year compared to just one with outside cultivation).
In addition, because indoor farms are not dependent on a specific location, it is possible to achieve higher product quality through proximity to brewers, and reduces the area required for agricultural crop growth. Indoor cultivation also uses 95% less water consumption through recirculating irrigation and exclusive use of renewable energy.
“We combine science and technology, and use renewable energy, to optimise the use of precious resources and produce top quality hops that are guaranteed all year round,” commented Inés Sagrario, CEO, Ekonoke.
Inés added: “I hope climate change doesn’t get so bad that indoor hop production is the only solution. But, the sad truth is the worse climate change becomes, the harder it will be to grow hops outside.
“They are very affected by drought and higher than average summer temperatures. It’s very dangerous for the crop, and we’re finding that the plants are contracting diseases that they never use to get, while the increased temperatures are also stressing the plant in a way that negatively impacts quality.”
After testing in the laboratory phase, indoor hop cultivation will be industrialised using Siemens technology to replicate the cultivation method for use in other countries. The aim being for hops to stop travelling around the world and for the technology and knowledge to do the leg work.
An industrial scale-up phase will be a pre-cursor to Ekonoke’s first commercial scale facility in Galicia, next to a new brewery being built by Hijos de Rivera (maker of Estrella Galicia and other popular beers).
“When we were thinking of the next step as a pilot farm, moving from pre-industrial to commercial scale and then exporting the model all over the world, we needed Siemens technology,” added Inés.
“We collaborated with Siemens through the Xcelerator programme, which was launched by ABInBev, the world’s largest brewer, The Coca-Cola Company, Colgate-Palmolive and Unilever. Part of their contribution in the programme was to help us to define what we needed which was really helpful.”
With its Xcelerator portfolio, Siemens is supporting Ekonoke in setting up industrial manufacturing both in terms of functionality and security. At the engineering level everything will be developed via the Siemens TIA portal – including both hardware configuration and the programming of the PLC and other elements. The aim is to industrialise Ekonoke’s production to bring it up to the technological level of brewery customers, such as Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev).
In the future, Ekonoke intends to consolidate all the data from its plants in an intelligent management system to make the best decisions about production, profitability and harvest quality. The next phase of the project will focus on energy efficiency where the company will deploy Siemens’ energy management system, Simatic Energy Manager PRO.
This software supports the user with a comprehensive reporting system for recording and displaying key figures and consumption data as well as with tools for determining key figures for more complex correlations.
Making oil slick
With brands such as Bertolli, Carapelli, Carbonell, Koipe, Figaro, Sasso and Maestros de Hojiblanca, Córdoba-based Deoleo is the world’s largest international producer, bottler and marketer of olive oil products, employing over 600 people worldwide and selling into over 60 countries.
Much like the brewing industry, the production of olive oil has been impacted by rising average temperatures across the world, which can have a detrimental impact on olive yield and quality. As such Deoleo is on a mission to optimise its productivity, efficiency and quality assurance, underpinned by a drive to become net zero by 2050.
Aided by the implementation of Siemens technology, the company reduced its Scope 1 and 2 emissions of CO2 by 66% in 2022 compared to the previous year, and allocated 36% of its investments to sustainability initiatives.
Carlos Sánchez, Global Chief Operating Officer Deoleo, said: “As leaders in olive oil we try to combine the tradition and heritage of yesterday with the innovation and technology of tomorrow.
“Sustainability is really important to us, and it underpins our three core business pillars of quality, brand heritage and global leadership. And to provide our consumers with the best quality and traceability of what is inside our bottles, we need technology.
“We are digitalising our business from the field to the table and that is transforming our production through technological innovation to achieve greater agility and efficiency, strengthen resource management control, establish transparent communication, reduce costs and ensure traceability.”
As part of Deoleo’s sustainability strategy, the company has partnered with IBM and the company’s blockchain technology to protect the traceability of Deoleo’s oils and drive certification of the sustainable processes carried out throughout the value chain.
The two companies introduced an innovative QR code unique to each of Deoleo’s bottles, enabling consumers to discover all the secrets of the oil they purchase. By scanning the code, consumers can travel through all the stages that a specific batch has gone through, discovering its origin, the olive varieties, the quality certification process, the flavours and the sustainable production origin. All this information is obtained through a database certified with IBM Food Trust’s blockchain technology.
To contribute to the company’s sustainability strategy, Deoleo employed technological support from Siemens to achieve the goal of operational efficiency and quality assurance. The technology is being used to implement the company’s digital transformation ambitions by improving operational efficiency and transparency and optimising processes, including research and development as well as oil management and quality control.
Deoleo requires an effective digital system to manage the enormous number of variables such as product quality, digital traceability and product batch ID that the company oversees across its entire value chain.
To do this the company has implemented Opcenter software from the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio to help drive its digital transformation and build its sustainable future. Deoleo has also deployed Opcenter RD&L (Research, Development and Laboratory) as its platform to streamline, optimise and align all data management for formulated products and to enable seamless transition of product data and definitions throughout the entire manufacturing process by integrating R&D labs with plants.
This helps Deoleo align product designs and processes with quality and regulatory requirements. Integrating and aligning R&D and manufacturing data and processes drastically speeds up the transfer of final product designs to mainstream manufacturing.
The Opcenter software can orchestrate and coordinate all manufacturing processes and is therefore also referred to as the factory’s ‘digital brain’. Among the many advantages of the software, Opcenter assists Deoleo in the implementation of digital twins, bridges the gap between enterprise systems and automation and enhances data integration and analytics.
One of the biggest challenges in olive oil production is the varying quality of the unfiltered virgin olive oil. This unfiltered oil must first be tested in the laboratory before a decision is made on whether – and if necessary, how – it will be processed. This testing used to be done manually. Today, the entire process is digitalised which has greatly improved traceability and transparency because the system can track the product’s journey from raw material to packaging.
Reducing the footprint of one of the world’s most famous brands
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) is the largest independent bottler by revenue for the Coca-Cola Company. CCEP’s Iberia Business Unit, which includes Spain, Portugal and Andorra, has seven soft drink bottling plants and four mineral water plants, serving more than 270,000 customers in Spain alone.
CCEP has set the goal of becoming a net zero company by 2040 across its entire value chain across all its markets. To achieve this goal, CCEP has established a roadmap that includes reducing its carbon footprint in all areas of its activities.
CCEP’s general goal is to lower the environmental impact of production by reducing the consumption of energy, water, raw materials and, of course, the reduction of CO2.
To this end, Energy Manager PRO digital software from Siemens is helping to improve CCEP Seville plant’s operations. The plant has a maximum capacity of production of more than 700 million litres of soft drinks, in an area comparable to 13 football fields, and is equipped with 12 production lines.
The software has been implemented to monitor energy and consumption, and is able to monitor these relevant KPIs, enabling a complete market analysis of the site. Two hundred and twenty five measuring points have been installed to digitally monitor water, electric energy, steam, natural gas, CO2 and compressed air.
The aim of the energy management system is to obtain strategic data to make profitable and sustainable decisions for the company. To this end, Siemens offers customer services that include a comprehensive design service, tool support and data analysis.
Key takeaways:
- Spain is known as the fruit and vegetable garden of Europe
- The food and beverage industry is one of the production sectors with the highest energy requirements
- Climate change is increasingly impacting the yield and quality of vital crops
- The need for the sector to decarbonise and digitally transform is enormous
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