Unilever’s Savoury Foods Plant

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Unilever South Africa inaugurated its savoury foods plant in Durban in December 2011. Image courtesy of Indonsa Factory Opening. The Indonsa savoury foods plant is the second largest plant of Unilever on the planet. Image courtesy of Unilever. The Indonsa plant in Durban manufactures savoury food brands of Unilever, including Knorr, Robertson's, Knorrox, Aromat and Rajah. Image courtesy of Indonsa Factory Opening. The Indonsa savoury foods plant of Unilever has zero dependence on municipal supply of water. It uses harvested rain water for most of the plant's operations. Image courtesy of Unilever. The plant is insulated to reduce the power consumed for powering air conditioning. Image courtesy of Indonsa Factory Opening. The Indonsa plant is incorporated with a number of green features. Image courtesy of Indonsa Factory Opening. Unilever has built South Africa’s first green manufacturing plant in Durban. It is the company’s fifth facility in South Africa and the second largest company plant in the world. It was inaugurated in December 2011. The plant has been named Indonsa, which means Morning Star in the IsiZulu language. Unilever has invested ZAR670m ($81.8m) in the plant. It is regarded as one of the largest private investments in the republic since the 2010 FIFA world cup. The Indonsa plant has been built with a lot of sustainability initiatives. Unilever believes it will be a trend setter for the company’s sustainable manufacturing projects globally as awareness and demand for sustainable food products has been increasing globally. The plant is spread over 22,000m2 (236,806ft2) in a 78,000m2 (839,585ft2) site at Riverhouse Valley in Durban. The plant’s size and design will enable it to become the company’s largest savoury dry foods manufacturing site globally. The plant manufactures savoury foods for Unilever’s brands including Knorr, Robertson’s, Knorrox, Aromat and Rajah. The design capacity of the plant is 65,000t a year, which can be expanded up to 100,000t. The plant is currently in the initial stage of operation and will become fully operational by the first quarter of 2012. The Indonsa savoury foods plant is designed with advanced green features to create an environmentally sustainable manufacturing site. It is the first plant of Unilever to incorporate advanced sustainable technology. It enables Unilever to increase the production of sustainably sourced products. The plant will complement Unilever’s target of reducing global CO2 emissions from manufacturing sites and logistics by about 5% a year. Unilever targets to reduce the CO2 emissions by more than 40% by 2020 from its 1995 base levels. It also aims to reduce the environmental impact of all its products by 50% and 100% of raw materials sourced are sustainable. The Indonsa plant is a step forward in materialising these sustainability aims. The Indonsa savoury foods plant has a number of sustainability features incorporated in its design. It uses controlled zoned lighting throughout for efficient utilisation of energy. The entire plant building is insulated to reduce the heat due to sunlight in a natural way and thus minimise the power consumed for air conditioning. The mixers and air compressors in the plant are run by super-efficient motors which consume substantially less energy than typical motors. The rain water falling on the roof of the plant is conveyed to a harvesting tank of 1.5 million litre capacity. The collected water is treated and used within the plant. The rainwater channelled is estimated to be equivalent to the average daily quantity of water consumed by 200 South African families. The water used in production phases within the plant is recycled from time to time by using smart and efficient water technology, which helps to recover about 70% of the water for reuse. It almost eliminates the need for municipal supply of water. It is also ensured to have spare water that can be supplied to the local communities in drought conditions. The condensate from air conditioning is captured and cooled in to water for use in cleaning of toilets. Biological and reverse osmosis equipment is installed to treat the process water and shower water. The plant is also designed for zero-landfill. The entire solid waste from the production process is recycled by using recoverable packaging materials. Some of the product waste will be donated for use as compost in local gardens meant for poor communities. Excess product waste will be converted into energy by a waste to energy conversion plant installed within the premises. The produced energy is fed to the national grid.

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