Ice cream is refreshing and with its proteins and carbohydrates is considered a source of energy. However, it also takes a lot of energy to mix ingredients like milk, dairy chocolate, sugar, and vanilla beans into the finished product. Electricity and compressed air play an important role in the thermal and kinetic processes for everything from mixing and extruding the ingredients, deep-freezing to -25°C, dipping into various chocolate coatings, through to final packaging. Energy efficiency is therefore right at the top of Unilever's list of priorities. As part of the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, this global corporation has succeeded in saving more than 150 million euros in energy costs from efficiency improvements in production alone since 2008.
In the area of pneumatics too, the use of innovative developments offers the potential to save energy and thereby lower costs. In the Unilever plant in Heppenheim, the energy efficiency module MSE6-E2M has recently been deployed to reduce the compressed air consumption of a system manufacturing Magnum ice creams. Unilever and Festo worked together closely to get this prototype of the energy efficiency module to the production stage. This process also showed that it is not just in the field of energy consumption that less is more.
Heppenheim Plant
Langnesestrasse 1
64646 Heppenheim
Area of business: Production of Heartbrand ice cream