Product Mix and Output Algorithm

Submission to DEFRA for Pre-Approval

Date of Submission: 11th March 2002

Company Name: Great Foods Limited

123 Station Road, Any Town, AB23 2XY

Contact Name: John Smith

Telephone:

Email:

Facility Number: FDF/1234/5678

Approach Used: FDF Common Approach 6

Brief Summary of Product Mix and Output Changes:

Tasty Foods manufactures chilled ready meals. We use cooked carrots as an ingredient in a number of our products. During the Base Year the carrots were prepared in another factory that supplied us with prepared carrots. Since that time we have added a new process to enable us to prepare carrots on site.

The new process came on stream in February 2001. There are no sub-meters on the new processing line, but we have identified a clear step change" in site energy consumption data since the new process was installed.

In this submission we have used FDF Common Approach 6 to adjust our target for the extra processing stage.

1. Base Year Data Summary

2. Detailed Description of Changes

We manufacture a number of ready meals for supermarket own label products. There are about 10 different products, but they all involve very similar ingredients and processes, hence they can be treated as a single product type.

All products contain carrots as an ingredient. Prior to February 15th 2001 the use of carrots was as follows:

• Carrots prepared and pre-cooked in another factory; chilled to 4oC and packed in large bags.
• Bags of carrots delivered on a chilled transport, placed into our raw materials chill store.
• Carrots at 4oC used as an ingredient in our products.

From the above date we added a new processing plant as follows:

• Raw carrots delivered and stored in ambient conditions.
• Carrots washed, peeled, sliced, blanched and chilled to 4oC in new production line. Chilled carrots transferred to existing raw material chill room.

The new production line uses electricity for water pumping, blanching, slicing, chilling and mechanical handling. No extra gas is used. No new electricity meters were fitted to the new production equipment.

Weekly data for electricity consumption and overall production is available for the last 3 years.

3. Regression Analysis of Electricity Data

The new production equipment influences only electricity consumption. We have carried out 2 regression analyses for 12 months prior to the installation of the new production equipment and the 12 months after. The 2 single regression equations both show a good correlation (R2 > 0.9). There is a clear step change increase in energy consumption in the second analysis. The raw data and regression graphs for each analysis are in the Appendix. The equations derived are as follows:

For period January 2000 to December 2000 (before the product mix change):

Weekly Electricity = 113.2 * production + 2608 kWh (1)

For period March 2001 to February 2002 (after the product mix change):

Weekly Electricity = 120.9 * production + 7816 kWh (2)

The extra electricity used by the new process can be estimated by subtracting equation (1) from equation (2):

Extra electricity per week = 7.5 * production + 5208 kWh (3)

4. Example of Target Adjustment

Base Year electricity was 1,500,000 kWh for a production of 12,000 tonnes. This is an average weekly production of 230.8 tonnes.

If the new process operated in the base year the extra electricity used can be estimated as:

Extra electricity = 52* (7.5 * 230.8 + 5208) = 360,828 kWh

Hence base year electricity can be adjusted to 1,500,000 + 360,828 = 1,860,828 kWh

Adjusted base year primary energy = 1,860,828 * 2.6 + 2,800,000 = 7,638,152

Adjusted base year SEC = 7,638,152 / 12,000 = 636.5 kWh / tonne

Adjusted 1st Milestone target = original target * (modified BY SEC / actual BY SEC)

= 547.2 * (636.5 / 558.3)

= 623.8 kWh / tonne

5. Action Plan

Between now and our final PMOA submission (in December 2002) we shall continue to collect weekly data to confirm that the "extra electricity" figure is correct for the actual target period.

6. Energy Efficiency Programme

Some words about efforts made to save energy and plans for the next few years. (See Example PMOA Submission for Common Approach 1 for an example).

Appendix - Detailed Energy and Production Data

The tables below give weekly figures for site electricity consumption and production before and after the changes.

Weekly data before changes:

Excel Analysis of data before changes:

Weekly data after changes:

Excel Analysis of data after changes: