How granular energy monitoring is transforming manufacturing competitiveness and sustainability

For much of the food, drink and wider FMCG sector, energy and sustainability have long been treated as overheads to be controlled rather than strategic assets to be exploited. That mindset is changing. With wholesale energy prices remaining unpredictable, regulators demanding evidence of progress and major customers asking harder questions about carbon, manufacturers are increasingly finding that efficiency is not a side issue but a source of competitive strength.

A good place ...

to begin is with visibility. According to UK government guidance on the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme, large organisations must carry out energy audits every four years, looking at buildings, industrial processes and transport, with findings reported to the Environment Agency. The purpose is not simply to tick a compliance box, but to identify practical, cost-effective ways to cut energy use and emissions. In other words, the audit framework itself points to a wider truth: you cannot improve what you cannot see.

That is especially relevant on the factory floor, where many sites still know little more than their total monthly consumption. The real problem often lies beneath the headline figure. One production line may be far more intensive than another; a compressor may be leaking silently for months; refrigeration, heating and extraction systems may be working against one another; equipment may be drawing power during quiet shifts when demand is low. Industry estimates suggest those hidden inefficiencies can amount to 15% to 25% of energy use in a typical mid-sized plant. More granular monitoring, particularly at machine or line level, can expose enough waste to cut costs by 12% to 18% without any major capital replacement.

That is why some of the strongest results are coming from businesses that treat energy as an operational variable, not just a bill to be paid. In the UK, Nestlé’s coffee factory in Tutbury monitors consumption across the site and recovers value from spent coffee grounds to generate steam for part of its operation. Heinz, supported by the UK Government’s Industrial Energy Transformation Fund, is installing heat pumps at its largest European plant to capture waste heat from production and use it to heat water, reducing emissions as well as energy spend. At Birds Eye owner Nomad Foods’ Lowestoft site, a mix of green electricity, water-treatment upgrades, low-energy lighting and better waste segregation has delivered a double-digit reduction in carbon emissions, while solar and wind projects are being explored. Elsewhere, Pilgrim’s is combining solar, battery storage, ground-source heat and heat exchangers in pursuit of more self-generated power.

The gains are not limited to heavy engineering. Suntory’s redesign of Lucozade Energy packaging cut plastic use and reduced water consumption during production, showing how product design and resource efficiency are increasingly linked. Greencore, the UK sandwich maker, has also used smart monitoring to gain real-time visibility of energy use, identify its biggest consumers and reduce waste without interrupting production, according to a case study from Invisible Systems.

What ties these examples together is that environmental and commercial benefits point in the same direction. Lower energy intensity means better margins. Better monitoring means fewer surprises and more resilient operations. And for manufacturers selling into tightly controlled supply chains, a credible emissions strategy is becoming part of the price of doing business. Tesco, for example, has required suppliers since 2021 to report manufacturing and agricultural emissions annually and to set science-based reduction targets aligned with its net-zero ambitions.

The financial case is increasingly clear. Several ESOS service providers say well-run audits can uncover savings worth 5% to 20% of total energy spend, often with payback periods of less than three years. That makes compliance more than a regulatory obligation; it can become a route to identifying projects that pay back quickly and strengthen resilience at the same time.

For manufacturers deciding where to start, the sequence matters. First, establish detailed visibility of energy, water and heat use at site, line or machine level. Next, look for low-cost operational changes in scheduling, maintenance and behaviour. After that, redesign energy-hungry processes and only then layer on bigger investments such as heat recovery, heat pumps, on-site generation and storage. Used properly, sustainability on the factory floor is not a contest between conscience and cost. It is a practical route to efficiency, stability and, increasingly, commercial advantage.

Source: Noah Wire Services