The Freshtime UK offices on Riverside Industrial Estate in Boston
Leading food producer Freshtime UK has been shortlisted in the Business category at the Lincolnshire Environmental Awards.
The company is among three businesses to have been shortlisted for the award, which celebrates those across Lincolnshire that encourage and protect the landscape and wildlife of the county.
From its factory on Marsh Lane in Boston, Freshtime supplies food to go and prepared vegetables to leading UK retailers.
To get to this stage in the county competition, colleagues were required to submit a 300-word application form and then play host to a category judge and an awards committee member, who visited the Freshtime site together earlier this month.
Martin Lightfoot, Freshtime’s Health, Safety and environment Manager, explained: “We have introduced a sustainable development programme focusing primarily on carbon neutrality, waste reduction, packaging management and resource use.
“As part of the programme we operate a zero to landfill approach – the majority of which is achieved by recycling where we can. We recycle cardboard, tins and plastic food trays to a third party and our vegetable waste is sent to an anerobic digestion plant to create electricity.
“So far this year we have already recycled approximately 200 tons of vegetable waste in this way thanks to the improved efficiency of our waste management systems.”
Freshtime is committed to a carbon-neutral site management plan and will only use 100 per cent recyclable packaging by 2022. It has also made a significant investment in the 24-hour Carbon Desktop analysis system, which allows staff to monitor its utility use down to individual machine level.
Martin added: “The software has made it very simple to identify our main utility usages across the site and significantly reduce our overall utility consumption.
“We are thrilled to have been shortlisted for an award for our efforts and are looking forward to celebrating the winners on the night.”
The Lincolnshire Environmental Awards and Lincolnshire Young Environmentalist Award are organised by the Rotary Club of Lindum in partnership with the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust.
Those shortlisted are required to give a presentation to judges at the Bentley Hotel in Lincoln on Thursday 6th June before winners are crowned at the ceremony that evening.
Martin will deliver a presentation and attend the ceremony with one of his colleagues.
To find out how they fare, follow Freshtime on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
For more information about Freshtime, please visit: www.freshtime.co.uk.
