Cadbury - Case study: Reducing water use

Cadbury is committed to reducing water use and is saving about 15% per year at its cocoa processing site in North Wales, equivalent to approximately 17 million litres per annum.

The site uses water for a variety of reasons, including generating steam for process heat, running cooling towers and cleaning. As part of the site environmental agenda, Cadbury invested around £2 million in an onsite wastewater treatment plant to clean up effluent arising from the manufacturing process.

Waste water from the factory is passed through a number of different treatment stages. The primary stages include removing suspended solid material by dissolved air flotation and using submerged biological filters to remove biodegradable material.

The final stage involves using a combination of microfiltration and reverse osmosis membranes to turn the effluent into high quality clean water. The quality of the treated water is to a high standard so the company is able to re-use it for certain 'grey water' applications (e.g. to feed boilers to raise steam) located outside of the main factory building away from all ingredients and product.

As a result of its investment, Cadbury has been able to reduce demand for water usage at the site by about 15% per year resulting in a saving in water costs of around £10,000 per annum.