Food waste

Minimising food waste

Our business is founded on utilising whey side streams from cheese production. In our research and development, we continue to explore new ways to make the best possible use of our raw materials.

But we are not yet able to avoid all food waste. Some components remain a challenge to repurpose, while others may be lost in wastewater.

We are taking strong actions to improve and are committed to the Arla Group goal to reduce food waste at processing level by 50% from 2015 to 2030.

Every milk component counts

Food waste at Arla Foods Ingredients covers all the whey and milk raw materials that are lost from the food chain. These include the components that end up in biogas production or fertilisers or are disposed of as landfill. Our strategy is to maximise raw material utilisation at the top levels of the food waste hierarchy.

Every milk component counts

Residue repurposed – from biogas to black soldier fly larvae

Delactosed permeate (DLP) is a residual dairy stream from our lactose processing line and traditionally disposed of as feedstock for biogas production. In 2023, we entered a collaboration to repurpose DLP as feed for an alternative source of sustainable protein – black soldier fly larvae. It’s an initiative that reduces our food waste significantly.

Upcycling a dairy waste stream

Through our research and development, we help solve food waste challenges beyond our own value chain. For example, we help the dairy industry recycle the large volumes of acid whey waste left over from the production of strained fermented dairy products such as Greek yogurt and cottage cheese. This is one of the ways we integrate sustainable solutions into our business.

Our climate ambition

Arla Foods Ingredients is committed to the Arla Group ambition to reduce absolute scope 1 and 2 CO2e emissions by 63% in 2030 compared to our 2015 baseline. We will contribute to this target by driving the green transformation of our fully-owned production sites.

The Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) has approved this target as consistent with the Paris Agreement ambition to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

The group-level target for scope 3 emissions is a 30% reduction by 2030.

We are working with the Arla group to update this target in line with the SBTi Forest, Land and Agriculture (FLAG) guidelines.

Food waste

Every milk component counts

Every milk component counts

Residue repurposed – from biogas to black soldier fly larvae

Upcycling a dairy waste stream

Focus areas

Our climate ambition