Our Projects/Food & Beverage/Shearer’s Foods
Food & Beverage
WEI modeled the thermodynamics of Shearer’s food-production processes, designed waste-heat recovery and energy-efficiency strategies, and continues to support performance through Monitoring & Verification.
Shearer’s Foods wanted its Massillon plant to lead the food industry in sustainability. That took more than efficient HVAC: the energy strategy had to account for the thermal demands and waste heat of cooking, baking and frying.
WEI modeled energy around the manufacturing process itself. The audit established a thermal mass balance for cooking, baking and frying and measured BTUs per pound of product — a production-based baseline for evaluating improvements.
With process loads quantified, WEI found where rejected heat could be recovered and reused instead of buying more energy for building loads.
WEI developed waste-heat recovery to capture rejection heat from chip manufacturing and reuse it for facility heating, cutting the plant’s purchased energy.
WEI also supported energy-efficiency strategies for a 60,000-square-foot expansion at Massillon, assisted with LEED certification documentation, and helped retrofit and automate energy systems at Shearer’s Brewster, Ohio plant.
Additional energy-efficiency strategies were developed for a 60,000-square-foot addition.
WEI assisted with retrofitting and automating plant energy systems at Shearer’s Brewster, Ohio operation.
The Massillon facility became the first food manufacturing plant in the world to earn LEED Platinum. It uses 30% less energy per pound of product and achieves 30% savings in metered BTUs across the total facility, including processes and HVAC.
More than 90% of cooking heat is reused to heat the building in winter — process and facility energy engineered as one integrated thermal system.
WEI continues to support Massillon with Monitoring & Verification to maintain optimization and confirm the energy strategy keeps performing as intended.
ENGINEERED. INSTALLED. VERIFIED.
WEI evaluates production loads, facility systems and recoverable heat together to reduce energy intensity without separating process performance from building performance.
