New super-concentrate greatly reduces soft drinks’ climate impact

A new super-concentrate developed by the Danish soft drinks-group CO-RO, reduces their amount of exported concentrate by two-thirds.

There are many ways of reducing your carbon-footprint. They are aware of this in the soft drinks-group CO-RO. During the last few years the company has revolutionized its way of exporting its popular soft drinks Suntop and Sunquick to its most distant markets. Thereby both saving on costs and climate impact.

The success of CO-RO is created by producing a super-concentrate of their soft drinks – a so-called “compound” – which results in the company sending two-thirds less concentrate across borders. When the super-concentrate arrives at its export-marked the last ingredients are added and the finished product is ready, explains CEO Søren Holm Jensen.

“It is a great success, that benefits both the climate and our business”, says Søren Holm Jensen.

He explains that, to save on transportation-costs, it is common procedure in the drinks-industry that ingredients such as water and sugar are not added until late in the production-process. Nonetheless, through research and development, CO-RO has succeeded in taking a giant leap forward in the further process of concentrating their soft drinks.

“We have the same good end-product. However, the amount of concentrate that we export, has been drastically diminished. We are very proud of that. We use less packing-materials, send less containers and fill up less storage-space – thereby decreasing our carbon footprint”, explains Søren Holm Jensen.

International collaborations to increase innovation

The road to success is paved with international collaborations and expertise.

Through the last couple of years, CO-RO has been working on attracting great minds from around the world to come work for the soft drinks-group, located in the northern part of the Zealand-region.

One of such minds is innovation-CEO Lee Taylor, who challenged CO-RO´s way of producing and exporting and kickstarted the process of concentrating their soft drinks further.

Lee is leading CO-RO´s expanded research- and development-unit, which now counts 40 men and women, operating from a brand-new innovation-building. Keeping in touch with company goals, CEO Søren Holm Jensen expects that also during the coming years, the unit will ensure a further decrease in carbon footprint and increase in earnings for the company.

“Our new facilities make it possible for us to make prototypes much faster. At the same time, we get the opportunity to better our position in the fight against sugar and plastic, which are the most important mega-trends challenging the soft drinks-industry at the moment. Here we must be at the very forefront”, says Søren Holm Jensen

Source: Dansk Industri