Frederick County's Kraft Heinz plant slated to get $26M to reduce emissions
WINCHESTER — Kraft Heinz plans to invest an estimated $26 million in its Frederick County plant to slash emissions after the company was selected on Monday to receive up to Kraft Heinz is set to invest an estimated $26 million in its Frederick County plant in order to reduce emissions. The company has been selected for up to $170 million from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to implement clean energy projects. The investment will include heat pumps, electric heaters and electric boilers to decarbonize food production at 10 facilities, including the local plant. The project is expected to create an estimated 500 construction jobs across the 10 plant sites and create opportunities for employees to receive additional training and develop new skills related to the new technologies.
Published : a month ago by Cormac Dodd For The Northern Virginia Daily in Environment
WINCHESTER — Kraft Heinz plans to invest an estimated $26 million in its Frederick County plant to slash emissions after the company was selected on Monday to receive up to $170 million from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to implement clean energy projects, according to an email from a company official.
Kraft Heinz operates a manufacturing facility in the Fort Collier Industrial Park, located just north of Winchester at 220 Park Center Drive, where products such as Capri-Sun and Kool-Aid are produced.
The Biden administration announced $6 billion in funding on Monday for projects intended to cut emissions from the industrial sector. The pot of money, funded by the 2021 bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, represents the largest-ever U.S. investment to decarbonize domestic industry to combat climate change, according to the DOE.
Roughly 25% of U.S. emissions are attributable to the nation's industrial sector, which has proven hard to decarbonize because of its energy-intense, large-scale operations.
A media release from Kraft Heinz states that the company will install heat pumps, electric heaters and electric boilers to decarbonize food production at 10 facilities, including the local plant. The processed food company has dual headquarters in Pittsburgh and Chicago.
On Monday, a Kraft Heinz communications official told The Winchester Star in an email that the company anticipates an estimated $26 million of the final award will be invested in the Frederick County location.
“At Kraft Heinz, we’re on a journey to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,” Marcos Eloi Lima, chief procurement and sustainability officer at Kraft Heinz, stated in a media release. “This investment will give us critical resources to make necessary improvements in our plants to help increase their energy efficiency and reduce emissions. This investment recognizes our continued efforts to reduce our environmental footprint, and we’re eager to get started.”
While award negotiations are still ongoing with the DOE, Kraft Heinz officials anticipate that the investment will help reduce annual emissions across the 10 locations by more than 99% from 2022 levels.
The company anticipates the project will create an estimated 500 construction jobs across the 10 plant sites. The media release states that this will provide opportunities for employees to receive additional training and develop new skills related to the new technologies.
There are approximately 550 employees at the Frederick County plant, according to a company official.
Besides Frederick County, clean energy projects also will be implemented at Kraft Heinz sites in Champaign, Illinois; Columbia, Missouri; Fremont, Ohio; Holland, Michigan; Kendallville, Indiana; Lowville, N.Y.; Mason City, Iowa; Muscatine, Iowa; and New Ulm, Minnesota.
Topics: Climate Change, ESG