THREE Things You DIDN’T Know about Sustainability at Your Favorite Fresh Foods Company!

Happy Earth Month! To kick off our celebration, we wanted to give you three fun facts you may not know about our sustainability efforts here at Taylor Farms.

1. We love reducing waste:

   To help with packaging waste, we reduce the amount of materials that come into our facilities, reuse materials when we can, and recycle what remains. Through our innovative packaging reduction, 16,277,915 square feet of paper is saved each year. In addition, we’ve partnered with the Sustainable Forestry Initiative! So what does that mean? For every one tree harvested for corrugated cardboard, seven trees are replanted — now that’s a breath of fresh air!

   As for food waste, it’s something we strive to reduce at all times. This is why we donate excess product to our employees, local food banks, and charitable organizations. We also recycle vegetable by-products for cattle feed and compost. We help reduce food waste in your homes because our products like Chopped Salad Kits and Stir Fry Kits are perfectly portioned, so you can use every part of the product to make something healthy and delicious, without any food being thrown away!

   

2. Ugly produce isn’t ugly at all:

   Sometimes produce doesn’t look perfect, but it still tastes great. In a variety of our products we chop the veggies before putting it in the bag, so we’re actually able to use this ‘ugly produce’ that may have otherwise been rejected due to surface imperfections… and it’s delicious!“One of my favorite examples of utilizing imperfect produce is romaine — spiraled romaine heads would generally be rejected if sold as whole heads, but we are able to chop them up and include them in our salads,” says Nicole Flewell, our Director of Sustainability.

   

3. We are seeking energy independence:

   Our energy focused sustainability initiatives — solar panels, a wind turbine, cogeneration, and fuel cells — help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and power our operations with clean energy. With these initiatives (and more to come in 2018), we’re on our way to new heights of energy independence!

   We have installed a total of 18.5 acres of solar panels at five of our facilities, which together produce 8.4 MILLION kWh/YEAR! This massive amount of renewable energy is equivalent to the energy used to power 675 homes per year.

   The blades of our 398-foot tall wind turbine in Gonzales, CA spin up to 20 rotations per minute and supply up to one megawatt of power. The greenhouse gas emissions avoided are equivalent to 4,033,864 miles driven by an average passenger vehicle.

   

We know one bag of salad won’t change the world, but how we make it might. We will sustain and advance these initiatives during Earth Month, and every day, to continue being a sustainability leader in the industry.

Tune into the Taylor Leaf all month for more fun sustainability stories from Taylor Farms!