ENERGY STAR Focus on Energy Efficiency in Dairy Processing

What is the Dairy Processing Focus?

The Focus is a partnership between US EPA’s ENERGY STAR program, the International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and dairy processing companies to improve energy efficiency.

How does the Focus improve energy efficiency?

EPA helps dairy processors overcome barriers to using energy efficiently and provides energy management resources unique to this industry. In all cases, strategic corporate energy management is promoted as the basis for achieving long-term, sustained energy savings.

Who may participate?

Any dairy processor with plants in the U.S. may participate.

Energy management tools and resources

EPA’s ENERGY STAR Dairy Processing Focus has tools and resources to help you improve energy efficiency, save money, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Take the ENERGY STAR Challenge for the Dairy Industry.

The International Dairy Foods Association and EPA’s ENERGY STAR program have challenged the dairy industry to improve their energy efficiency by 10% within 5 years! Sites that achieve the ENERGY STAR Challenge receive recognition from the EPA for their leadership in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Learn more about the Challenge for Industry.

Download the ENERGY STAR Challenge for Dairy Sector Registration Form (50KB)

Score the energy performance of your dairy processing plant.

Plant energy performance indicators (EPI’s) for the fluid dairies and ice cream processing plants are now under exploration by EPA and the dairy industry. EPI's are corporate and industry-wide plant tools that enable assessment of how efficiently your plants use energy, relative to similar plants nationwide. The EPI's use basic plant information to provide a percentile ranking of the plant's energy efficiency by comparing it to the industry's average and ""efficient"" plants (defined as performance that is better than 75% of the plants in the industry).

For further information on these EPI's, contact Gale Boyd, Duke University at gab7@econ.duke.edu.

Improve the energy efficiency of your dairy processing plant.

EPA’s energy guide, Energy Efficiency Improvement and Cost Saving Opportunities for the Dairy Processing Industry discusses energy efficiency practices and technologies that can be implemented right now in your dairy processing plants.

• Download the Energy Guide (1.4MB)

Develop a corporate energy strategy.

Energy Strategy for the Road Ahead is a groundbreaking report that guides companies through the process of evaluating future energy risks and enables them to set a robust energy strategy for the future.

Build a corporate energy management program.

EPA’s ENERGY STAR Guidelines for Energy Management outline the steps for creating a corporate energy management program.

Assess your energy management program.

EPA’s Energy Management Assessment Matrix is a quick and easy way to compare your corporate energy practices to those outlined in the Guidelines for Energy Management and help you identify areas for improvement.

Network and learn from food processing energy managers.

Energy managers from food processing companies participating in the ENERGY STAR focus meet annually to network among themselves and learn together about the challenges confronting energy management in their businesses, and identify solutions.