Our Commitment to Environmental Responsibility

How we make our products matters. We want our energy to be clean, reliable, and affordable. Taylor Farms currently uses energy from solar panels, a wind turbine, cogeneration, and fuel cells at many of our factories around the country. These installations are reducing our greenhouse gas emissions and our energy costs.

This month we’re celebrating the one year anniversary of the installation of the solar panels at our Dallas, TX facility. Since January 2017, they have produced 1,528,141 kWh of power. There have been 1,137 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions sequestered, which is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 244 passenger vehicles driven for one year and to the CO2 emissions from 123 homes’ energy use for one year.

Last month we celebrated two installation anniversaries — in November 2012 we activated a Bloom fuel cell at our Salinas, CA plant, and in November 2014 we began operating one of the Salinas Valley’s first wind turbines to help power our Gonzales, CA vegetable processing facility.

The Bloom box is comprised of five 200-kilowatt fuel cells that convert natural gas into electricity without the combustion required by a conventional electrical generator. The power produced by the fuel cell is 21% cleaner than the traditional utility grid and has nearly eliminated nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions. Also, it produces electricity using virtually no water, which is close to 100% less than an average power plant.

The blades of the 398-foot tall wind turbine in Gonzales spin up to 20 rotations per minute and supply up to one megawatt of power. It produces approximately 15% of the energy needs at the facility. Since 2015, the wind turbine has produced 7,760,418.59 kWh of electricity. The greenhouse gas emissions avoided are equivalent to 14,155,479 miles driven by an average passenger vehicle, and equivalent to the energy used to power 624 homes per year.

Our commitment to sustainability goes hand in hand with our mission to make healthy fresh foods for our consumers. We know that one bag of salad won’t change the world, but how we make it might, so we’ll continue to invest in resources to produce healthy, high-quality food powered by renewable energy.