Cargill Business Designed to Boost Food Manufacturers' Profits Introduced at IBIE

MINNEAPOLIS Sept. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Cargill Process Optimizers (CPO), a service designed to help food manufacturers grow leaner through operational and sustainability efficiencies, was introduced today at the International Baking Industry Exposition (IBIE) in Las Vegas. CPO helps bakeries and other food manufacturers improve bottom line results by helping them reduce energy and water consumption, reduce yields and enhance their capacity.

"Especially in today's economy, food manufacturers are exploring a variety of cost-saving options to stay competitive," said Dave Ward, general manager, Cargill Process Optimizers. "Whether a bakery needs to squeeze more capacity from existing assets or tackle sustainability goals, CPO delivers pragmatic, actionable solutions with a quick return on investment, usually within two years."

Through its holistic, comprehensive approach, CPO helps food manufactures solve their most challenging business issues, including:

• Maximizing margins as ingredient costs rise and market prices drop
• Maintaining a consistent, safe product
• Optimizing performance of equipment, production systems and throughputs
• Meeting new sustainability demands

Leveraging Cargill's broad knowledge and experience in producing food, agricultural and industrial products, CPO combines process engineering experts with proprietary software tools to assess and recommend improvements to food and beverage manufacturing plants. CPO has helped more than 120 Cargill and customer plants around the world identify opportunities for significant savings and process improvements, such as:

• Improving yields and raw materials usage 2 percent to 5 percent
• Lowering heat and refrigeration energy use 5 percent to 15 percent
• Reducing waste and effluents 5 percent to 25 percent
• Increasing capacity 2 percent to 10 percent
• Minimizing losses during batch changeovers

Specific to bakeries, CPO has helped to identify yield loss points through a combination of detailed mass and energy balances and statistical analysis, reducing overall costs and improving yields. Despite differences in scale, product format and product type, many baking plants share similar characteristics and face common challenges. CPO has been successful in helping both fresh and frozen bakers grow their bottom lines by maximizing efficiencies across their operations.

To learn more about Cargill at IBIE 2010 and CPO, visit the Cargill Innovation Exchange or https://cpo.cargill.com/.

About Cargill

Cargill is an international producer and marketer of food, agricultural, financial and industrial products and services. Founded in 1865, the privately held company employs 131,000 people in 66 countries. Cargill helps customers succeed through collaboration and innovation, and is committed to applying its global knowledge and experience to help meet economic, environmental and social challenges wherever it does business. For more information, visit www.cargill.com.

SOURCE Cargill