How Does Tetra Pak Reduce Emissions in Dairy Production?

Modern existing dairy processing equipment can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40-49%, according to a new study by Tetra Pak.

The food packaging company has conducted the Dairy Processing Assessment, which shows how companies can improve the impact of their existing liquid dairy lines.

The study was carried out by Tetra Pak and was independently reviewed by the Carbon Trust.

About the Dairy Processing Assessment

The assessment was carried out by comparing Tetra Pak’s 2019 best-practice dairy processing lines with upgraded lines.

These included a defined suite of market-available decarbonisation and recovery solutions across four major line types.

Impact was calculated with an avoided-emissions and net carbon impact approach, which allowed Tetra Pak to quantify the change in emissions from reduced electricity, heat and cooling demand.

This approach accounts for the emissions from the solutions themselves.

Throughout the process, Tetra Pak worked with the Carbon Trust to review and update the model and methodology for avoided greenhouse gas emissions to follow best practice, including clearer documentation of assumptions, a data-quality assessment and sensitivity analysis on key parameters.

Rodrigo Godoi, Vice President, Processing Portfolio Management at Tetra Pak, says: “For many dairy producers, improving efficiency while managing costs is a daily challenge.

“Our study shows that practical improvements to existing lines can reduce energy, water and product loss, helping customers strengthen performance and lower total cost of ownership without major disruption.

“And with supportive policy frameworks and access to targeted financial incentives, these improvements can be scaled even further, helping producers overcome upfront investment barriers and accelerating progress across the dairy sector.”

Findings from the study

The background of the study comes from the fact that the global dairy sector plays a critical role in global food systems through the food and beverages it provides and the livelihoods it supports worldwide.

Tetra Pak says that this opens the door to a significant opportunity, with businesses able to optimise existing processing lines with solutions already available on the market.

The study found that modernising existing equipment delivers substantial efficiency gains, with average reductions of 47% in greenhouse gas emissions, 45% in water use and 57% in product losses.

The company says that if these modernisations were adopted across the global dairy production industry, it could lead to potential global carbon savings equivalent to taking three million cars off of the roads.

It found that implementing water saving and recovery solutions, such as advanced filtration and cleaning in place (CIP) systems, could reduce water usage in dairy production lines by up to 455 million m³ per year globally.

Veronika Thieme, Associate Director Europe at the Carbon Trust, says: “Our food systems offer significant decarbonisation opportunities.

“Assessing avoided emissions is a powerful way to understand the carbon savings these solutions can deliver.

“By quantifying the avoided emissions from new solutions that can help the agricultural industry cut emissions, we create the evidence base needed to scale them.”

Tetra Pak’s solutions

The findings from Tetra Pak and the Carbon Trust’s study show how improvements to existing processing lines can make an impact on more stable and resilient food systems.

The emissions reductions can be supported by Tetra Pak’s upgrades that it offers to dairy production lines.

This includes electrically powered heat pumps, which replace the use of fossil fuel-based energy in boilers and chillers, lowering fuel consumption and heat-related emissions.

It offers integrated process efficiency, enabled by OneStep Technology, for UHT milk and yoghurt. This combines multiple process steps into a single, more efficient concept, delivering electricity and steam savings.

Tetra Pak also provides filtration and recovery solutions, including membrane filtration and CIP recovery, as well as water filtering stations that recover product loss and water from process and cleaning streams.