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Uelzena: A pioneer in sustainable dairy production interview with Bernd Gewecke, Managing Director of Dairy Products, Ingredients & Contract Manufacturing, Uelzena The Uelzena Group - a dairy cooperative from northern Germany – has placed sustainability at the heart of its business. Bernd Gewecke, Managing Director of Dairy Products, Ingredients & Contract Manufacturing at Uelzena, explains how involving all stakeholders and basing decisions on solid data have been key to helping the firm transition towards more sustainable practices.
Bernd Gewecke, Managing Director of Dairy Products, Ingredients & Contract Manufacturing, Uelzena
Uelzena was founded by a group of regional milk producers in 1952, as a means of centrally processing and marketing milk. Today, the company is active in four company-wide business areas: Ingredients & Contract Drying, Dairy Products, Instant Beverages and Health Products.
“As a cooperatively organised dairy company, sustainability is part of our DNA,” explains Gewecke. “The responsible use of natural resources is in our own interest, because preserving them ensures our longterm survival of our company. Thinking and acting sustainably also matches our cooperative values.” The Group sources raw materials predominantly within a radius of 150 km, and its milk producers operate in a highly sustainable manner. “For example, they produce their own fodder, and invest in renewable energies as well as in animal-friendly stables with outdoor access,” says Gewecke.
Tech innovation, industry involvement Critical resources such as electricity, water and gas are also major cost factors in dairy production. Investing in green technology therefore make perfect economic, as well as environmental sense. “In recent years we have made investments in a number of energy- and resource-saving processes,” notes Gewecke. “These include the installation of energy-saving LED lighting, comprehensive heat and process water recovery, frequency-controlled burners for our steam boilers, the modernisation of our own combined heat and power plants and the construction of a new energy-efficient evaporator for milk. And these are just a few examples! As a result, we have already been able to reduce our CO2 emissions by almost 50 % since 2012.” Another key innovation has been data collection, and making data more transparent and visible. “In order to improve anything, you need to know what’s going on,” says Gewecke.
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