J.R. Simplot, the nation’s largest potato grower and provider of McDonald’s french fries, has created an internal value-chain loop out of its sustainability practices.
Simplot, which has about $4.5 billion in annual sales, takes waste slurry from its phosphate mining operations and pipes it 87 miles underground to a plant where it’s converted to fertilizer this is used in potato-growing operations, according to the firm’s sustainability report.
By-products from the firm’s food processing and fertilizer plants are used to provide water and nutrients to neighboring farms via “land application” that is tailored to meet the needs of the specific crop being grown.
By-products from potato processing plants are fed into anaerobic digesters to capture biogas, which is used in boiler systems at Simplot’s plants in Aberdeen, Moses Lake and Portate La Prairie.
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