We believe each bag of salad and fresh vegetables can make a positive social and environmental impact through the right practices and investments. How we grow, process, package, and ship each Taylor Farms product makes an impact.
Between managing our sustainable farming practices and energy consumption and tweaking our packaging and food material management, we’re working to preserve a healthy environment for generations to come.
We focus efforts on resource conservation through 5 main areas: energy, material management, water stewardship, soil health and biodiversity, and sustainable packaging. Let’s look at each of these pillars below.
Energy
Since 2012, Taylor Farms has invested over $100 million in onsite renewable and alternative energy in our facilities. Our energy strategy prioritizes resiliency and renewability. We utilize a combination of solar power, wind power, energy storage, fuel cells, and a cogeneration system.
In September of last year, we completed the installation of 1.3 MW of solar power at our San Juan Bautista, California facility. This installation combines with 6MW of fuel cells from Bloom Energy and a 2MW/4MWh battery to form a microgrid that can power the entire 450,000 sq. ft. facility. Read the full story here.
By the end of 2023, Taylor Farms’ diverse portfolio of onsite energy assets will be:
12 solar installations 8.89 MW
1 cogeneration system 2 MW
4 fuel cell installations 12 MW
1 energy storage system (battery) 2 MW
1 wind turbine 1 MW
Material Management
Taylor Farms is committed to using resources efficiently and minimizing waste of all materials through material management programs.
We focus on upstream management and methods of redesign, reduction, and reuse. Of our 22 production facilities, 27% participate in the material management program and four are TRUE certified. (The TRUE certification validates an operation’s efforts to reduce waste sent to landfill or incineration and efficiently manage all materials in their system.)
Reducing Food Loss
Reducing food loss is not only key to sustainability, it also means that consumers are getting the freshest products possible, no matter what type of salad blend or veggie blend they’re purchasing.
Taylor Farms’ Fresh-to-Shelf strategy is focused on freshness and reducing food loss in the following ways:
- Adjustments to our supply chain allow for combining multiple product segments on the same delivery truck.
- Reducing days-in-transit and increasing delivery frequency promotes fresher products to grocery stores.
- Taylor Farms participates in the 10x20x30 challenge, an initiative of 10 of the world’s largest food retailers and providers engaging with at least 20 of their suppliers to halve food loss and waste by 2030.
- Taylor Farms partners with local food banks and organizations such as The Farmlink Project and Brighter Bites to address food insecurity and education.
Water Stewardship
Water is essential to everything we produce at Taylor Farms, and is an increasingly scarce resource. We’re committed to the long-term availability of clean water for the environment, the industry, and local communities. Our facilities and growing operations understand this and continually look to make improvements in water use efficiency.
At Taylor Farms, we view water stewardship holistically:
- Where and how we source our water: We closely monitor quality and availability risks as well as potential regulatory risk.
- Irrigation efficiency: In our growing operations, we use both center pivot sprinkler systems and drip irrigation water systems, depending on the crops’ requirements. We have also developed a uniform water spray system program to maximize irrigation efficiencies and reduce total demand.
- Protection of water quality & soil health: We have implemented effective and efficient irrigation management practices that maximize crop yield while avoiding environmental contamination of leaching to soil and groundwater.
- Facility advancements: This summer, we will be piloting a new SmartWash Solutions add-on to our wash lines which we expect to provide improved water management throughout wash cycles. Currently, it’s expected to reduce makeup water by 90%. Water will be used more efficiently in the wash process, reducing the amount of water used throughout the day.
Soil Health & Biodiversity
Joe Pezzini, Senior Director of Agricultural Operations, states, “Our business was built on the soil we farm and being good stewards of the land. To further demonstrate our long-standing dedication to our customers, consumers, and community, we have built our Healthy Soil Metrics. These metrics will help us expand on all the great work our growers do to support a sustainable ag ecosystem.”
Our growing arm, Taylor Farms Agricultural Operations, continues to improve upon our growing practices on our 19,332 acres across California and Arizona. We were one of the first to implement organic growing practices and take those best practices to our conventional ranches.
We assess the following practices to improve our stewardship towards healthy soil and biodiversity:
- Practice reduced till and conservation tillage practices where our cropping system allows.
- Utilize cover crops where possible to maintain ground cover, build nutrient content, and prevent further soil loss.
- Apply integrated pest management (IPM) practices that promote biodiversity and pollinator habitat while maintaining alignment with food safety protocols.
- Monitor nutrient management, including evaluating available nitrogen, improvements to soil health, microbiological activity, and the effects of these factors on yield.
- Digitize the collection of field data and integrate new technologies such as automated cultivators (weeders) and drones.
Sustainable Packaging
We echo our customers’ concerns over sustainable packaging. Over the past nearly three decades, we have made significant investments in packaging technology that serve to:
- extend the shelf life of our products
- reduce food waste
- enhance convenience for consumers driving growth in the consumption of healthy fresh products
- reduce our packaging’s environmental impact
Our R&D, sustainability, purchasing, and product development teams work together to find improved material types and sourcing, packaging optimization, use of recycled content, informative labeling, and improved end-of-life disposal capabilities. We continue to build out our spec management and life-cycle analysis tool that will help baseline our packaging’s environmental footprint, measure the impacts of current and future packaging changes, and help us make smarter design decisions moving forward.
At Taylor Farms, we challenge ourselves every day to grow our business responsibly. The future and health of our business depends on our ability to conserve resources, maximize efficiencies with the resources deployed, and to seek new solutions for tomorrow.