British Sugar invests £16.5m in evaporation plant

The company has managed to halve its steam usage in the past four years

British Sugar said it had spent £16.5m on making one of its factories more environmentally friendly.

The company has a new evaporation plant at its Wissington factory in Norfolk, aimed at cutting its carbon footprint.

Phil McNaughton, head of decarbonisation, said the addition would save 30,000 tonnes of carbon a year.

He said the company was looking at improving its energy efficiency and reducing its steam usage.

Mr McNaughton said the amount of steam needed to process the sugar had halved over the past four years , although the factory still remained a high user of energy.

The company needs to clean, shred, boil and process the beet into different grades of sugar for food and confectionery manufacturers.

The Wissington plant is also used to produce ethanol, an additive to petrol, animal feed and agricultural lime, which is retrieved from the soil on the beet when it is brought in.

The steam from the factory provides heat to 18 hectares (44 acres) of glasshouses, used to grow medicinal cannabis.

Phil McNaughton said British Sugar was focusing its efforts on improving its energy efficiency

Mr McNaughton said: "We are also... trying to look further ahead at ideas and technologies of fuel that can displace our reliance on natural gas as we move forward through the latter part of this decade and into the next one."

The company is focusing future efforts on research into how new developments can cut carbon.

Mr McNaughton said: "We are really focusing on improving our energy efficiency and reducing our steam usage."

He said British Sugar were now planning investment for a new evaporator at its Bury St Edmunds site.

In recent years it has spent £10m at its smaller factory at Cantley, Norfolk, to reduce its carbon footprint.

"We are always looking at new developments on all our sites," he said.

"We don't stand still."