With its wildflower meadow roof merging into the Evesham hills, hempclad walls, solar panels and geothermal pumps, the new £30 million salad factory is arguably one of the most environmentally friendly buildings in the country.
Not only that but new technology will improve the quality and shelf life of the 2.2 million salad bags the new factory is able to produce every week, thus reducing wastage.
The development of the Kanes’ Eco Factory was the concept of the company’s late Chairman, Dr John Randall.
It was his vision to develop a factory that truly worked with and respected the environment.
Kanes’ Engineering Director Clive Champion worked with Birmingham based architect firm Emission-Zero, who specialise in sustainable design, to make the dream a reality.
The resulting 11,000m² factory, with its sweeping domed roof, has taken three years to build and features a raft of eco-friendly initiatives. The Green Roof (thought to be the largest bio-diverse wildflower grass roof in the UK) is planted with nearly 90 species of wild flowers and grasses including poppies, campions, buttercups and ox-eye daisies. The roof not only provides improved ecology, it soaks up rainwater to reduce the likelihood of local flash floods, provides insulation and muffles the noise from the machinery inside.
The fact that it has a living roof actually improves the sustainability of the structure as it physically protects it from the elements. The roof also houses two banks of PV (photovoltaic) Solar Energy panels which via distribution provide all of the electricity needs for the computer suite cooling system.
The building design produces good levels of natural light, improving the mood and therefore productivity of the employees while energy efficient lighting supplements the daylight. The Hempcrete cassette system applied to the outer envelope of the building not only provides thermal efficiency by creating a more stable internal environment with reduced energy usage but by utilising this natural fibre insulation it greatly reduces the embodied carbon within the structure.
As well as the new Kanes factory having the largest area of hemp clad system in the UK, it also boasts state of the art geothermal heat pump technology. This process controls the heat from the factory to power computers and refrigeration units so that electricity demands for refrigeration systems on site are significantly reduced. Where refrigeration is used elsewhere in the factory, ammonia or natural hydrocarbon refrigerants are employed to reduce total carbon emissions further and minimize ozone depletion.
Underground tanks harvest the rainwater from the roof which is used to flush the site’s toilets reducing demands on the mains supply.
There is also a sustainable storm water management system on site that controls excess rainwater and the ponds created provide a home for nesting mallards, grass snakes, frogs, newts, toads, bulrushes and reeds. In preparing for this project Kanes have more than doubled their capacity to recycle water bringing the process waste water from the new facility back to high potable standards. This has been achieved by incorporating an advanced low energy filtration system, the first in the UK, reducing power inputs by 75%.
It’s not just the building that is environmentally friendly, the salad washing and packing line also uses cutting edge technology.
