© Imperial College LondonPage 1 Waste Reduction in the Chilled Food Sector Anne Norton (PhD Student)

© Imperial College LondonPage 2 Products manufactured by companies in the Chilled Food sector include Recipe Dishes/ready meals Fresh Pasta Chilled Pizza Delicatessen Products Sliced Meats Prepared Vegetables Salad Products Dressed Salads Dressings Dips Sushi Chilled Soups Chilled Sauces Pies, Flans and Quiches Sandwiches Sandwich Fillings Desserts Prepared Fruit Short shelf life - must be kept chilled to maintain safety and/or quality

© Imperial College LondonPage 3 Questions to be addressed Where does most waste arise in the chilled food supply chain (from farm gate to retail outlet)? What are the root causes of waste? How might the quantity of waste be reduced?

© Imperial College LondonPage 4 Methodology to be used Sustainable Value Stream Mapping (SVSM) Proposed by Simons and Mason (2002) –Based on Value Stream Mapping (VSM), a diagnostic technique used to visualize the value stream of a specific product –VSM is widely used to support the implementation of Lean Manufacturing methods –Aim of Lean Manufacturing is to drive out waste caused by operational inefficiency

© Imperial College LondonPage 5 Lean Manufacturing –An approach to manufacturing initiated by the Japanese car company, Toyota –Involves eliminating waste by re-thinking the manufacturing process –Minimize activities that absorb resources but create no value –Greater benefits when entire value stream is considered (both intra- and inter- company)

© Imperial College LondonPage 6 The Seven Wastes (Ohno, 1988) Overproduction Waiting (by operators and machines) Transportation of materials Unnecessary or overcomplicated processes Excess stock or materials Excess movement by operators Defective products Result – low productivity, poor quality, increased costs and wasted resources

© Imperial College LondonPage 7 Lean Thinking (Womack and Jones, 2003) Five basic principles: –Define value by specific product (value can only be defined by the customer) –Identify the value stream on the basis of a single product (or product family) –Make value flow without interruptions –Let the customer ‘pull’ value from the producer (production should be demand led) –Pursue perfection (continuous improvement)

© Imperial College LondonPage 8 Value Stream Mapping (Rother and Shook, 2003) Highlights bottlenecks in the production chain, e.g. as build-up of inventory between processes Facilitates the identification and measurement of –value-adding (VA) activities –non-value-adding (NVA) activities –necessary but non-value-adding (NNVA) activities Aids analysis of information flows

© Imperial College LondonPage 9 VSM Procedure Analyse activities in the current state and categorize as VA, NVA or NNVA To achieve a desired future state: –Eliminate NVA activities –Minimize NNVA activities –Optimize VA activities –Improve information flows, e.g. from retailer to supplier The future state becomes the next current state in a process of continuous improvement

© Imperial College LondonPage 10 Source: Red Meat Industry Forum (2003)

© Imperial College LondonPage 11 Source: Red Meat Industry Forum (2003)

© Imperial College LondonPage 12 Sustainable Value Stream Mapping extends conventional VSM Considers both operational and environmental aspects of the value stream Has been used to analyse CO 2 emissions arising from the transport steps of various logistics scenarios (Mason et al., 2002) We aim to use a similar approach to analyse various wastes and their association with value-adding and non-value-adding activities

© Imperial College LondonPage 13 Extending SVSM In the context of analysing physical waste: Identify the avoidable wastes arising from NVA and NNVA activities Where practicable, eliminate or reduce these wastes Where waste is related to VA activities and currently appears unavoidable: –Reduce as far as possible by improving efficiency –Where appropriate, identify less harmful replacement materials –Identify improved methods for waste management, including re-use, recycling or energy recovery

© Imperial College LondonPage 14 Wastes typical of the Chilled Food sector Solid wastes –Food, cardboard packaging, plastic packaging, metal containers Emissions to air –Greenhouse gases, e.g. from energy usage and refrigerants –Other permitted discharges to air, e.g. particulates such as seasonings Liquid wastes –Water consumption –Trade effluents: (BOD/COD)

© Imperial College LondonPage 15 General observations from factory visits Forecasting is used as an aid to predict the likely size of orders from the retailer Generally inaccurate (e.g. by 50 %!) Production often starts in advance of receiving the final order Can lead to overproduction and waste Raw materials have to be held in cold storage to ensure availability – short shelf life

© Imperial College LondonPage 16 General observations from factory visits Many ingredients are supplied fully or partially prepared Meat and vegetables supplied in sealed plastic bags, in secondary packaging (plastic or cardboard) Wet ingredients supplied in plastic buckets with lids (sometimes lined with plastic bag) or in pouches Dry ingredients supplied in plastic/paper sacks Fairly small quantities, e.g. 10kg, industry standard for ease of handling Therefore large quantities of packaging waste

© Imperial College LondonPage 17 General observations from factory visits Automated production lines –More waste, mainly due to losses in pipework/hoppers, but also damaged packs –Greater accuracy in delivering specific weights, so fewer under- and over-weights –Cannot be used for ‘lumpy’ sauces Manual production lines –Generally, less waste –Less accurate weights, so more under- and over- weights, especially in ‘healthy lifestyle’ products –Greater flexibility in the types of product, e.g. ‘lumpy’ ingredients

© Imperial College LondonPage 18 In summary To reduce waste: Identify NVA activities and associated physical wastes - ELIMINATE Identify NNVA activities and associated physical wastes - MINIMIZE Identify VA activities and associated physical wastes - OPTIMIZE through continuous improvement Our research aims to show that SVSM provides the insights needed to bring about improvements in operational efficiency and reductions in physical waste throughout the value stream

© Imperial College LondonPage 19 References Mason, R, Simons, D, Peckham, C and Wakeham, T (2002) Wise Moves Modelling Report: Life Cycle Modelling CO2 Emissions for lettuce, apples and cherries, URL: hcsp Ohno, T (1988) Toyota Production System: Beyond Large Scale Production, Productivity Press, New York FCC/RMIF (2003) Cutting Costs – Adding Value in Red Meat, Food Chain Centre, Watford/Red Meat Industry Forum, Milton Keynes Rother, M and Shook, J (2003) Learning to See: Value Stream Mapping to Create Value and Eliminate Muda, Version 1.3, Lean Enterprise Institute, Brookline, USA Simons, D and Mason, R (2002) Environmental and transport supply chain evaluation with sustainable value stream mapping, Proceedings of the 7th Logistics Research Network Conference, Birmingham Womack, JP and Jones, DT (2003) Lean Thinking, 2003 Edition, Simon and Schuster UK Ltd, London