Last week, I had the opportunity to travel to Casa Grande, Ariz., and help the local Frito-Lay team prepare for and host the celebration event marking the first "near net zero" manufacturing facility for Frito-Lay -- a true milestone in the food manufacturing industry as a whole. "Near net zero" is a term we use to describe the work our Sustainability and Casa Grande teams have done to transform the facility into one that runs primarily on renewable energy sources and recycled water, while producing nearly zero waste. (Pictured: Casa Grande Manufacturing Plant Director Jason Gray (left), Frito-Lay North America President Tom Greco (middle) and PepsiCo Americas Beverages CEO Al Carey (right) commemorate the debut of the "Near Net Zero" facility by pressing the Frito-Lay logo into cement.)
The celebration event was a huge success -- many city, county and state officals attended, as did the Frito-Lay leadership team, vendor partners and several media outlets. After an opening presentation and overview of the "near net zero" work accomplished at the site, members of the Casa Grande team toured guests through the key sustainability technologies: The Membrane Bio Reactor (MBR, a water purification system), the solar fields and the biomass boiler (which converts agricultural waste into energy to help generate steam for the plant). We even had a couple of our all-electric route trucks and the latest in our fleet sustainability innovation, our CNG truck (powered by compressed natural gas), on display as well -- it's also pictured above.
Pictured above: The team at the Frito-Lay Casa Grande, Ariz., site installed two single axis tracking PV systems, with more than 18,000 solar panels, on 36 acres of the facility's agriculture property.
Everyone I met at the event was impressed by the progress Frito-Lay has made to support environmental sustainability overall -- a key imperative of PepsiCo's (our parent company) Performance with Purpose vision -- especially with the significant milestones they saw firsthand at the Casa Grande "near net zero" facility. Below is a selection of photos from the event, and you can hear more about the day of celebration from our Casa Grande site's manufacturing plant director, Jason Gray. Enjoy!
- Kristin
Jason Gray Podcast
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