ConAgra Foods and its Sustainable Development Council congratulate all the 2006 award applicants for their outstanding efforts to achieve results in business, conservation, and environment sustainability. The following are summaries of the award-winning projects (by category) as presented at the 2006 ConAgra Foods Annual Sustainable Development Conference.

BUILDING ON BEST PRACTICES

• ConAgra Foods Retail Products—Frozen Foods
  Troy, Ohio
  By using an air-impingement process, the plant can more efficiently perform precooling of pizza and dramatically reduce the amount of nitrogen used to cool product.

• ConAgra Food Service—Specialty Potato Products
  Park Rapids, Minnesota
  The plant improved water quality, reduced water usage and Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), and provided a saleable by-product by separating the starch from the water in their potato-cutting system.

CLEANER PRODUCTION PROCESSES

• ConAgra Foods Retail Products—Frozen Foods
  Sidney, Ohio
  By replacing a waterfall applicator with a triggered spot applicator for the oil used in pizza production, a reduction in oil usage has occurred that also increased product quality and plant safety.

• ConAgra Foods Retail Products—Grocery Foods
  Newport, Tennessee
  It was determined that by reducing the temperature and increasing the residence time, a more consistent bean moisture could be achieved, which reduced the amount of bean spillage and therefore the amount sent to the landfill.

ENERGY REDUCTION & USE

• ConAgra Foods Retail Products—Grocery Foods
  Oakdale, California
  This project combined three efforts: reduce natural-gas input costs, capture and utilize wasted process steam, and reduce the use of process steam in the T-60 evaporation system.

• ConAgra Foods Retail Products—Grocery Foods
  Trenton, Missouri
  Several teams investigated savings opportunities involving water, natural-gas, and electrical usage by using waste heat and modifying existing operations to gain more efficiency.

• ConAgra Foods Retail Products—Grocery Foods
  Memphis, Tennessee
  The purchase of several pieces of equipment such as capacitors and a vacuum pump, along with the implementation of a variety of steam-usage initiatives, reduced water, electricity, and natural-gas use at the plant.

• ConAgra Foods Retail Products—Grocery Foods
  Newport, Tennessee
  In a successful effort to reduce electricity and natural-gas usage at the plant, boiler economizers were installed to capture flue gases, numerous minor air leaks were repaired, and two new air compressors were also installed to replace natural-gas heaters.

• ConAgra Food Service—Specialty Potato Products
  Taber, Alberta, Canada
  To reduce energy use, the plant installed an anaerobic digestion system that consumes relatively low amounts of energy and produces methane gas that is utilized as a low-cost, environmentally sound energy source.

PACKAGING & GREEN MARKETING

• ConAgra Foods Retail Products—Grocery Foods
  Menomonie, Wisconsin
  While maintaining structural integrity, the plant reduced landfill waste by using thinner plastic pudding cups.

RECYCLING & SOLID WASTE MANAGEMENT

• ConAgra Foods Retail Products—Grocery Foods
  Sylvester, Georgia
  Instead of sending peanut waste to the landfill, peanut skins are now sold as a protein source for animal feed, and floor sweepings and other rejects are sold to make wild bird food.

WATER CONSERVATION & WASTEWATER TREATMENT

• ConAgra Foods Retail Products—Refrigerated Foods
  Lincoln, Nebraska
  The plant reduced water by adjusting an existing shower system used to cool hams. The new system has better product coverage and uses less water.

• ConAgra Food Service—Culinary Products
  Helm, California
  By collecting the condensate during the tomato-paste evaporation process, the plant can reuse it for boiler makeup water.

BEST NEW TECHNOLOGY

• ConAgra Foods Retail Products—Refrigerated Foods
  Mason City, Iowa
  The plant gained great efficiency and reduction in water usage by installing a new ham cook-and-chill system that utilizes separate storage tanks outside the facility to maintain reusable water at the appropriate temperatures for the continuous process.

SPECIAL RECOGNITION AWARD

• ConAgra Food Ingredients—Specialty Ingredients
  Gilroy, California
  Although the plant did not cause the perchlorate contamination, it needed to be corrected to continue efficient operations. Levels have been lowered to a nondeductible range through an ion-exchange system.

SPIRIT OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AWARD

• ConAgra Foods Retail Products—Refrigerated Foods Energy Program
  Working from a best-practices concept, the team conceived and carried out nearly 200 projects in 23 locations across the company, which resulted in considerable savings in energy consumption and costs, including water, electricity, and natural gas.