A pleasure food widely consumed in France, chocolate has a considerable carbon footprint, mainly due to cocoa cultivation and the resulting deforestation. While this aspect is now mobilizing the vigilance of consumers, who are demanding better practices from manufacturers, regulatory constraints are also pushing the latter to decarbonize their entire value chain. The hunt for energy savings, particularly during the cocoa processing stages, is thus a lever not to be overlooked in reducing your emissions.
Deforestation, the cocoa industry's number one carbon challenge
The production of 1 kg of chocolate emits between 12.5 kg (for white chocolate) and 16.7 kg of CO2 (for 52% dark chocolate) (source Carbone4). While the amount of sugar and milk present in the recipe has an impact on the product's carbon intensity, the origin of the beans also comes into play: agricultural practices and bio-waste treatment differ from one country to another. Nevertheless, around 95% of chocolate's carbon footprint comes from emissions due to deforestation (source Carbone4). This has not escaped the notice of consumers, who are far more aware than before of the impact of cocoa cultivation on equatorial forests and are demanding more traceability.
No surprise, then, that manufacturers are expected to prove and display their total control of the supply chain. And with good reason: in France, chocolate is a national passion, with an average of 7 kg consumed per inhabitant per year. This makes France the world's seventh biggest importer of cocoa beans, both for its own consumption and for export (source notre-environnement.gouv.fr). Meeting the ever-increasing demand for chocolate products, while at the same time demonstrating greater transparency in the sustainable production of raw materials, is a twofold challenge. Added to this are now very ambitious decarbonization targets at both European and national levels. Good reasons to rethink your practices in depth.
Rethinking your industrial practices from an energy angle
The energy angle, sometimes overlooked, is a prime avenue for realizing savings that will have a direct impact not only on your bills, but also on reducing your carbon emissions. According to ADEME, by 2035, 20% of energy savings can be addressed globally in industry. There are many ways in which manufacturers can optimize their energy consumption: sizing your installations according to your needs to avoid unnecessary energy overconsumption, or improving the energy efficiency of your buildings are obviously essential steps to avoid any wastage.
Other avenues to explore include:
- Lowering the pressure set point on compressed air systems
- Enhancing the maintenance of facilities in operational condition during certain periods of the year
- Recycling and valorizing your waste
- Optimizing your routes and logistics
- Sensitizing your site personnel to energy savings
But the chocolate industry also has a lever for action specific to its activity: the processing of cocoa beans.
Energy optimization opportunities for chocolate makers
Optimizing your industrial processes
In order to detect potential energy savings, it's essential to measure your consumption. This will enable you to identify your under-performances and question the causes: machine layout, settings, equipment to be changed.
In the chocolate industry, for example, the "kWh/tonne ground" during cocoa grinding constitutes a key indicator for assessing the exact impact of this energy-intensive phase. Installing variable speed drives on grinder motors, or even on mixer motors during the conching phase, could thus be an appropriate response to decrease your consumption.
The cold production processes on site are also of particular interest - they are moreover critical, since they can affect production safety, quality, visual appearance as well as the taste of the chocolate coming off the lines. Here, too, there are many possible courses of action. For example, the adoption of more modern, energy-efficient refrigeration equipment (compressors with more efficient condensing systems or natural refrigerants). Or redesigning your facilities to incorporate a heat recovery process, which will cover part of the thermal requirements of the buffer storage and then chocolate tempering phases.
Deploy energy performance monitoring
While there are phases of lower production due to the seasonality of chocolate demand, the energy consumed by your sites is never zero. Even at night, you consume energy. Tracking this "background noise" will enable you to optimize your energy consumption heel. This can represent considerable savings, up to €80,000 a year on some plants. And to make these optimizations possible, it's necessary to establish a monitoring of your energy performance.
By establishing energy profiles for your sites, you'll gain predictivity over actual, and be able to carry out corrective actions or implement usage recommendations - such as switching off equipment at certain times or lowering the average room temperature. Setting up and monitoring these dashboards over time is not something you can improvise: enlist the help of an energy flow expert partner like Lemon Energy. We'll draw up for you a roadmap and a long-term action plan to decarbonize your processes, and track your energy performance over time in a logic of continuous improvement.
Beyond the critical issue of deforestation, reducing your energy consumption is a real lever for reducing both your operating costs and your CO2 emissions. By committing to an energy performance trajectory, you'll be responding all the more to the demands of consumers concerned with sustainable development, and contributing to France's broader ecological transition objectives, while developing your competitiveness.
