LEDs, Organic Milk, Country Roads, WhiteWave Foods

I just left WhiteWave Foods’ Mt. Crawford, Va., manufacturing plant a few hours ago.

The green manufacturers of International Delight creamers, Horizon organic milk, Silk soy milk, and Land O’Lakes products recently installed 700 to 800 high-bay LED lightingfixtures in its facility—one of the largest LED installations of its kind—so far.

Plant Engineer Toby Duveneck said the new lighting is not only brighter, better-quality lighting, it saves the company $15,000 a month in electricity bills alone.

The most noticeable savings are in the cold storage area, where the food products are kept at 34 degrees, because the LED lighting does not contribute heat to the space as does metal halide, countering the efforts to chill the area— allowing Duveneck to double up on savings, he said. Fluorescents don’t perform well in the cold environment. Furthering the savings is that the lighting is instantly switchable so the fixtures can be occupancy sensored.

The electricity savings alone are not the main benefit, though, Duveneck said. Accessing the lighting above the production equipment is difficult and replacing the bulbs requires using lift rental equipment, which compounds the cost.

You can read more about WhiteWave’s awesome high-bay LED lighting in the upcoming March/April issue of Green Manufacturer.

Leaving WhiteWave’s Virginia location today was a bit less frightening than it was getting there yesterday. My connecting flight from the Dulles, DC airport to the Shenandoah regional airport was in an 18-seat capacity twin-engine plane with just seven other passengers. We hit some air pockets pretty hard and sailed up and down a few times that made the ride feel downright roller-coasty and the certainty of arriving safely a little iffy.

My exit trip from the food manufacturer along the scenic Skyline Road atop the Blue Ridge Mountains heading north and then along the Shenandoah River to my next plant visit was considerably less scary, and more scenic.

Driving down the road, I got a feeling that I should have done this yesterday, yesterday.