South African juice company, Sir Fruit, is dedicated to the principle of ‘People, Planet and Prosperity’. To show how serious it is to its commitment to the planet, Sir Fruit has implemented a number of initiatives to ensure the production of energy efficient, sustainable and low carbon products. Assisting them in this journey is the National Cleaner Production Centre South Africa (NCPC-SA).

The Soweto-based fruit juice plant signed up to participate in the centre’s resource efficient and cleaner production (RECP) assessment in 2016 and are a recipient of support to upgrade its heating and cooling equipment. 

 “With the support of the centre, Sir Fruit has assessed its current technology and identified more environmentally sustainable technologies that will result in them using far less energy to cool its product and heat water,” explains NCPC-SA project manager, Mashudu Madzivhandila. 

The Sir Fruit technology upgrade will reduce the plant energy consumption by an estimated 40%.

This upgrade was made possible through a clean technology project funded by the government of Japan, which invested R1.7 million from 2014 to 2018 in the Low Carbon and Climate Resilient (LCCR) Industrial Development in Africa project, in partnership with the United Nations Development Organization (UNIDO).

According to UNIDO, the aim of the project is to apply RECP practices to address associated risks from climate change in vulnerable industries by introducing appropriate mitigation and adaptation technologies, as well as approaching governments to adopt relevant national policies and strategies to support climate vulnerable industries. RECP techniques are an improvement process that can be utilised to identify the technology intervention for mitigation and adaptation.

The Sir Fruit team is encouraged by the boost to their sustainability efforts. “As a business we are on a sustainability journey with the focus being on ‘reinvesting and doing better’. Even though the LCCR Industrial Development Project focused on the implementation of new technology and not on optimisation, we are now focusing on optimising the existing production process in order to save even more, and make a positive impact on the environment,” says Production Manager, Andreas Janse van Rensburg.

Sir Fruit is not only taking the necessary steps to produce energy efficient fruit juice but ensure their product bottle is made up of 50% recycled plastic. They have started installing solar panels to reduce the plant’s energy consumption even further.

The LCCR project was implemented by UNIDO internationally and the NCPC-SA locally. Madzivhandila adds that the LCCR was also implemented in Egypt, Kenya and Senegal.

To view the full project report, please click here.