Clean and Green at Nestle

The Nestle site at Fawdon, which employs over 500 people, is set to become one of the most environmentally-friendly food production sites in the country.

The first step is a project to encourage wildlife to come back to the site by planting an ecological sanctuary on the factory grounds. Employees and their families were invited to plant a wild flower meadow within the factory grounds with the aim of attracting many species of butterfly back to the area.

The butterfly meadow was opened in April by Councillor Brenda Hindmarsh, pictured here with factory manager George Stewart. "The company is working with the Wildife Trust and involving their staff in what is a great initiative" said Brenda. Nestle is also proposing to install what is known as an anaerobic digester on the site and have organised an information drop-in at Fawdon Community Centre as part of the planning application process.

The equipment will process effluent that comes from the production of the sweets and chocolates, together with other waste ingredients, in an environmentally-efficient way, producing renewable energy for re-use as surplus heat and also for sale into the electricity network.