Waste

A total of 99 per cent of Apetit Group’s waste streams are non-hazardous waste that is either recovered or used in energy production. Nearly half of the entire Group’s waste is biowaste from the Säkylä frozen foods plant, consisting mainly of vegetable peeling waste and sidestreams from harvest season vegetables. Biowaste streams from the Säkylä frozen foods plant are used in bioenergy production.

The Kantvik vegetable oil milling plant generates a very small amount of landfill waste. In addition to biowaste, the plant generates waste streams that are channelled to energy production as industrial biowaste. Some of the Kantvik plant’s waste streams, such as the screening fraction of oilseeds, can be utilised in the oil milling plant’s in-house bioenergy production.

Hazardous waste accounts for less than 0.1 per cent of the Group’s waste streams. Apetit Group’s waste is processed by an external operator that is responsible for the appropriate disposal of waste.

Waste generated by end products manufactured by Apetit Group consists of packaging waste and potential food waste. The aim is to increase the degree of recyclability of the packaging materials used by Apetit. Approximately, of Apetit products’ consumer packaging waste, 48 per cent is recyclable paperboard, 28 per cent is recyclable plastic and 28 per cent plastics that can not be recovered in recycling.

Apetit Group’s operations do not generate wastewater that would be directly hazardous to the environment. Water that is used at the Säkylä plant to wash harvest season vegetables and thus contains nutrients goes through Apetit’s own wastewater treatment plant, the operations of which are subject to authorisation. If water was released to the environment without treatment, it would increase eutrophication.

Reducing side streams

The bioenergy plant built at the Kantvik vegetable oil milling plant will use the milling plant’s own side streams in energy production. The straw waste that comes with oilseeds will be utilised in the bioenergy plant’s raw materials, which will reduce the amount of the plant’s waste processed elsewhere. 

A new energy solution to be implemented at the Säkylä plant in 2023 will make use of biosteam produced from the plant’s own sidestreams, among other things. The brush scrubbers and steam peelers deployed at the Säkylä frozen foods plant have sig- nificantly improved root vegetable yield by reducing the amount of material ending up as peeling waste.

The brush scrubbers and steam peelers deployed at the Säkylä frozen foods plant have improved the root vegetable yield by reducing the amount of material ending up as peeling waste.