When you work out in the country, surrounded by beautiful 100-year-old-apple orchards, it’s hard not to think about keeping planet earth green and growing. Old Orchard Brands Corporate Sustainability Program adopted stringent energy and material conservation policies years ago—and we continue to implement new strategies for reducing our environmental footprint. Here’s how!

By Reducing Material Use

Over the past 15 years, Old Orchard has worked to reduce the amount of plastic used in our 64-ounce bottles (64 oz PET) from 81 grams down to 58 grams. So far, we have saved more than 2 million pounds of plastic resin! (The industry average weight for 64- ounce PET bottle is 68 grams.)

In 2005, we downsized our corrugated cardboard 12-ounce juice shipping cases to a tray and shrinkwrap combination that reduces our use of corrugated and landfill by 50%.

In 2007, we downsized our corrugated 64-ounce bottle cases from three pieces to one piece, a step which reduces the cost of these materials by nearly $200,000 annually and saves cardboard usage.

We reduced the weight of our 12-ounce frozen concentrate containers (12-ounce HDPE) from 28 grams to 23 grams of HDPE. By “light-weighting” these plastic containers, we have saved more than 500,000 pounds of HDPE plastic.

We continue to work at light-weighting our packaging, such as reducing our PET cap size from 43mm to 38 mm. This reduction was started in late 2013 and allowed us to reduce our bottles from 64 grams to 58 grams.  We also reduced our corrugated boxes from 44 ECT to 40 ECT which resulted in a large cost reduction. Our engineers are constantly looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint.

By Reducing Energy Consumption

In 2000, we began using our cold process water to pre-cool our cooler water. In turn, we use our postheated cooler water to pre-heat bottled juice prior to the pasteurization process. Annually, these steps have eliminated nearly $250,000 worth of natural gas otherwise needed to fire the boiler.

We conserve electricity through the use of high-efficiency fluorescent lighting—an energy savings of 50% – 75% annually. In addition, the architects who designed Old Orchard’s manufacturing facility included natural daylight windows and skylights. And, we always turn off the lights when we aren’t using them.

By Reducing and Recycling Materials

In 2006, we purchased equipment that recycles corrugated paperboard, plastic stretch wrap, plastic pallet banding and other plastic packaging (PET and HDPE).

We recycle nearly 20 tons of second-generation packaging every 6 weeks. That means 180 tons less waste goes to the landfill every year. All of our juices come in recyclable containers. Our 64-ounce juice bottles are PET (polyethylene Terephthalate) #1 plastic. Our 12-ounce plastic containers are HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) #2 and their lids are LDPE (Low Density Polyethylene) #4.

By Conserving Water

Old Orchard works hard to conserve water during waste water treatment and discharge. We discharge just 12,000 gallons per day. The beverage industry average is more than two times that amount, based on identical production volume.