At Chickmont Foods Ltd. we believe everyone plays a part in protecting the earth on which we live. That's why we have developed and invested in initiatives which will progress these causes.
We have embarked on the installation of solar panels to capture the energy from the sun and feed it back into the grid, helping reduce our carbon footprint. So far, we have installed 500kwp in 5 chicken houses across Barbados, our broiler processing facility and our egg processing facility. In some of these cases we are generating more solar power than meets the needs of the various operations. We see solar power as the way forward to power Barbados, and we have made plans to double this capacity in the coming years.
Our latest achievement was in 2018, when we installed a 100% fully organic gas refrigeration plant to service our cold storage and our broiler processing facility. The system has reduced the need for A/C compressors which saves in electricity and improves efficiency. It also eliminated the use of harmful Ozone harming gases. It guarantees our facilities are refrigerated at the correct temperature and that all our products in cold storage stay frozen 100% of the time.
In 2019 we will be moving to vacuum-sealed bags with attractive new packaging for our customers, eliminating all the polystyrene trays which our whole chickens are packaged. This is keeping within the mandate that the government of Barbados has set out for the country. These bags which will preserve the freshness and lifespan of the product, will be our continued push to reduce our waste.